Issa Ibrahim | Review of Soft Out Spoken by Jyl Anais

Issa Ibrahim was born in 1965 in Jamaica, New York to an artist mother and a musician father, and it was discovered early that Issa had a gift for rendering. The talent was nurtured in a creative familial environment benefiting from boundless encouragement and constant exposure to a myriad of artistic expressions. In the 1990's, after aimless wandering, losing his mind and a devasting family tragedy, Issa found himself institutionalized indefinitely in an asylum. Reclaiming his life from the jaws of absolute defeat, Issa finds meaning and purpose as an artist, musician, writer, activist and 25-year artist-in-residence at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center's Living Museum. Issa is the author of The Hospital Always Wins: A Memoir, published by Chicago Review Press 6/2016. His writing was met with highly favorable reviews leading to interviews on NPR and other radio outlets, international press and features including Oprah Winfrey's O Magazine. Issa continues to participate in numerous art and mental health exhibitions the world over as a member artist of Fountain House Gallery, the premier gallery for promoting the work of mentally ill artists. Issa will continue to challenge preconceived and prejudicial ideas in society, combat stigma, expose the realities of our broken mental health system and explore how openness can aid in respecting psychiatric sufferers and survivors who are our fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, friends, neighbors and ourselves.

October 10, 2020
Edited by Stephanie Kaylor

Issa Ibrahim

Review of Soft Out Spoken by Jyl Anais

Soft Out Spoken by Jyl Anais Lulu, 2019 Jyl Anais’ book of poetry, Soft Out Spoken (Lulu, 2019), comes at just the right time. Now that multitudes of dissatisfied and wounded former psychiatric "consumers" are rising up and finding their voice, the loudest voice I’ve heard so far is this one, who is indeed soft outspoken. There is an equal amount of towering strength as there is of heartbreaking fragility. Her oeuvre could best be summed up by the title of one of her poems, "silence as subtext," with some of the best moments found in the thoughtful pauses the author leaves within the work. Jyl’s book simmers like a fine stew with many great ingredients and layers of flavor, delivering a satisfying meal. Being an African-American artist and author, I am most captivated by Jyl’s explorations of race and culture and the dissonance within. Her summation of an encounter with another Trinidadian, the kinship, as ‘my body relaxes, because’ as the title so plaintively suggests, "culture." So simple yet so heavy with meaning and implication, and she knows this. It is this knowing that I believe separates the weekend writer from a true poet. Most impressive and courageous is Jyl’s deep dives into her own mental health experiences and the loaded and oft misunderstood journey people take when prescribed psychotropic medications. The reader truly feels her rage as she excoriates "Incarceration through diagnostic code" branding professionals as "purveyors of poison for profit." Strong words, but all too real for those who have been there. Listing the dozen of medications that they ‘claimed to do no harm’ in her love to hate you letter titled "Dear Psychiatry" Jyl steps up in her writing as a potent voice in the anti-psychiatry movement. Jyl saves her most profound musings for issues of women’s empowerment. I believe every young woman and boy child saddled with toxic masculinity should read and inhabit the powerful "No Trespassing," a declaration the writer thinks to tattoo "across my chest after all, and walk with a pit bull named ‘Happy’." Too often I have heard female friends decry the wolf-whistles and unwanted attention of clueless men, and Jyl captures perfectly that frustration married to an unyielding dignity. The book is comprised of one-and-two-page tender morsels and bon mots that make for easy reading when you need a poetic pick me up, or emotional salvo to punch you in the gut… something real to make you feel alive. Like the best poetry, Jyl’s work beguiles, asks questions and leaves the reader unsettled, begging for repeated readings and visitations long after the volume is completed. If you have are lucky enough to have a woman in your life, be it lover, mother, aunt, sister or daughter, are curious or wish to celebrate the darker hues beneath the skin of Caribbean culture, or you or someone you know/love has been beset by mental health issues and been misguided and derailed by psychiatry and the system, then this book is required reading. Visit Jyl Anais' Website