I Am Lunatic

In her debut experimental poetry book I Am Lunatic, S.J Sandilands rummages through her overflowing shoebox of accumulated memories and plucks out raw materials to represent the many faces of bipolar disorder - the elephant in her living room. Shifting between buoyant, melancholic rhythms and playful, sinister tones, this mental health poetry book taps into the darkness in children's literature, while shining a spotlight on the pains and complexities of her unruly, abstruse passenger. This dark poetry is a distorted lens into the rollercoaster, upside-down realms of the author's condition. Through her poetry and accompanying illustrations, S.J Sandilands confronts her trauma, embracing oddities, humour, and haphazardness with a child-like unruliness. There is a sense of catharsis and empowerment that emerges from her writing.