Tag Archives: contemporary poetry

The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded by Molly McCully Brown

I don’t read a lot of poetry, but recently picked up The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded by Molly McCully Brown, and I’m so glad I did. I first read Molly McCully Brown when someone shared a link to an article she had written. I was blown away by the quality of the writing then. I follow her socials, and see that we know some people in common. So, I follow her work. In fact, I thought for sure that I had already read The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, but once I picked it up, I realized I had not. I would have remembered!

This is an excellent book of poetry. The whole project really needs to be poetry, and I like that about it, and I think nonpoetry readers (beyond popular poetry, anyway) will find this book to be a bit more accessible, and still completely artful. It reads up quickly. It does not need to be belabored. It just exists, and it is good. Go read it.

Molly McCully Brown won the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded