Notes from the Ward

Notes from the Ward is Steffi Tad-y's new collection of poetry exploring bipolar disorder and psychotic break through lived experience and a poet's eye. It is breathtakingly truthful and disarmingly direct, a powerful intervention into a diagnosis that remains more medicalized and sensationalized than understood.

“Tad-y’s stylistic choices throughout Notes from the Ward speak of thoughtful intention and control…offers an inside view of a psychological journey that mostly steers clear of the trauma narrative, choosing instead to share sensitive observation in a spirit of connectedness.” - Dawn Macdonald, Seaboard review of books

"thoughts in a space that blends both attempting to heal and the challenges of existing in such a physical and mental space." - Rob Mclennan

“I was struck by the moments of gaiety and love for life and
other humans who perhaps do not always reach the same height and depth of
feeling as the speaker with her bipolar affliction...One of the most skillful poems in the collection is perhaps Notes from the Ward #11,” in which the speaker on seeing a police car out the ward window finds a metaphysical analogy in herself...There is self-knowledge and recognition of her own weaknesses in this poem that so adroitly uses typographically-expressive spacing." - Gillian Harding-Russell, The British Columbia Review

The “Notes…” are jarring, troubling, haunting, and crafted to say as much between the lines as the words themselves express. We slip inside experience. ….I can recommend Notes from the Ward without reservation. Steffi Tad-y is a poet to watch. She has something relevant to say and the skill to say it." -  Kathryn MacDonald The t3mz Review