Trust the Hours: Exploring Mental Health Through Art

“If someone asks me, ‘Why do you write?’ my answer is that it’s my job to discover the metaphors with which the universe speaks to us, and that this discovery is therapy,” Jean Prokott says. “To work through a poem is to actually work through the large problems of the world and sometimes my own mental illness and trauma.”

Prokott is Rochester’s poet laureate, one of 22 around the country who were awarded funding through the Academy of American Poets and the Mellon Foundation “to undertake meaningful and innovative projects that enrich the lives of community members, including youth, through responsive and interactive poetry activities.”

Her project pulls together creative works from a diverse group of poets and artists who self-identify as affected by mental illness, whether it’s their own or someone close to them. The project, hosted at Rochester’s Historic Chateau Theatre, kicks off with a live poetry reading on April 26 and features an exhibit that’s open to the public through the first weekend of June.

Commissioning a mix of visual art and poetry deliberately created a space where the two are meant to be experienced side by side. She named the project Trust the Hours, borrowed from a Galway Kinnell poem titled “Wait,” written for a student who was considering suicide.

“I wanted to be incredibly specific in how we defined mental illness because I believe the way we talk about it can impact the stigma,” Prokott adds. “That is, overgeneralization could be construed as talking around it rather than about it; it could be seen as diminishing it, watering it down.”

Eight of the 24 artists involved in the project identify as LGBTQ+, and for many of them, mental health is a large part of the stories they tell through their work.

“The piece that I created is called ‘Minnesota Nice,’ and it’s kind of built around a little bit of the PTSD and trauma that I have growing up as a biracial and bisexual woman here in Minnesota in the ‘90s and 2000s,” shares mixed-media artist Tierney Parker.

“I think I’ve always been told that I need to be in a box and felt that pressure a lot,” Parker continues. “In times like this, where we’re being questioned and not tolerated more than ever, [mental health] is extremely important.”

Pono Asuncion (ze/they) also uses art as a form of therapy. “Making art is a coping skill, a mode of processing and a medicine for me. My art allows me to connect with my ancestors and establish agency,” ze shared.

Although they often create landscapes they think of as places where loved ones they grieve can visit, Asuncion created a series of self-portraits for this exhibit. “Through art, I don’t feel the need to explain myself, and I get to take the burden of translation off my shoulders,” ze says. “It takes away the need to analyze and compartmentalize all the different aspects of my identity with verbal language.”

“Racism, transphobia, interpersonal trauma — these things limit and erode one’s sense of possibility,” ze continues. “Visual art, for me, is a method of journaling about and documenting my indigeneity, neurodivergence and queerness that would otherwise be difficult to communicate.”

Poetry is also an avenue used to explore concepts that can be difficult to articulate. “Writing is a very therapeutic practice for me, as well as a spiritual practice,” says Leo Rose Rodriguez, describing poetry as a space where they are able to work out feelings and concepts they’re grappling with without the pressure of having to organize it into a logical sentence structure.

“So much of gender and sexuality exists in this ineffable place,” they continue. “I can’t necessarily write you an essay clearly laying out my gender, but I still feel it in my body, and my poetry is the vehicle by which I help you feel those indescribable feelings. Long before I came out, my writing was a space where I could safely explore the possibilities for my life and my future.”

For Rodriguez, mental and physical health are a package deal. “The brain and the body are part of each other, and they’re constantly in communication,” they say. “So, it makes a lot of sense that, for me, I could not have gone on one of those journeys without taking on the other as well.”

Parker uses her art to not only express herself and explore her identities but also to allow people to ask questions and explore difficult topics. “To me, I think a lot of people need to get comfortable being uncomfortable because that’s the only way that we learn,” she says.

The project ended up taking on additional meaning for Prokott during the planning process.

“Now I see it as an act of political resistance as much as a way to fight the stigma, promote self-expression, and create empathy and community,” she says. “Poetry and art are resistance. What an amazing opportunity to find such beautiful people in and around Rochester to fight for who we are and the world we want.”