Writers and suicide

Why do so many writers commit suicide? On this day in 1972, John Berryman took his life (see Today In Literature). He's hardly alone. Here's a long list.

A. Alvarez studied Sylvia Plath's suicide in The Savage God. Lew Welch wrote a remarkable poem prior to his own suicide: "not the bronze casket but the brazen wing..." (Song of the Turkey Buzzard), which inspired the title of my recent screenplay The Brazen Wing. Much has been written on this topic:

Perhaps more than other artists, writers can be seduced by the attractiveness of suicide as a means of controlling their life story. Several speakers pointed out the tendency of suicide to become a powerful image or metaphor, one that takes root in the mind and flourishes. "Both Sylvia Plath and Sexton shared the notion that a great artist's life must end in death," Ms. Middlebrook said. "You stop before you write more bad stuff. Sexton applauded Hemingway's suicide. She said 'Good for him.'"


Read article in NY Times.

I think the meaning of suicide is entirely contextual and personal. I do not condemn the option. But, of course, I'm one of those intellectual dinosaurs called an existentialist.