As seen on ABC 5’s Minnesota Live morning television, on the front covers of the Mankato Free Press and St. Peter Herald!

Poems from the Asylum Official Book Trailer #2. Click here to see another.

Anthology by Martha Nasch, 1932.
Copyright by Janelle Molony, 2021.

Reviewers are saying…

“A satisfactory read!”
Beth Zabel, St. Peter State Hospital Museum (2021)

This book… “restores dignity and self-respect … to so many women diagnosed with a mental illness.”
Mary Ann L. Palumbo, St. Paul, Minnesota Historian (2021)

About the Award-Winning Book

Biography and complete anthology of harrowing and insightful poems written in 1932 by Martha Hedwig Nasch, patient-inmate #20864 at the St. Peter State Hospital for the Insane.

After noticing something strange from a secret medical procedure in 1927, St. Paul, Minnesota, Martha Nasch’s doctor claimed she just had a “case of nerves.” With a signature from her adulterous husband, Martha was committed against her will to the asylum. She spent nearly seven years in the Minnesota hospital during the Great Depression and tried to escape twice. Martha’s poems from behind bars include shocking eyewitness accounts of patient treatment and a long-suffering adoration for her only child, now being raised alone by her deceiving spouse.

When not a soul believed Martha’s story, she sought an explanation for her mysterious condition that led her to a spiritual answer for the mystifying curse. Would her findings make her a metaphysical guru of the Breatharian lifestyle, or would she become the laughingstock of her Depression-era family?

Please note: Due to some strange and dark themes, the nonfiction poetry anthology, Poems from the Asylum, is intended for a MATURE reading audience.

The Editorial Team

Mother-Daughter research team, Janelle Molony and Jodi Nasch Decker, have prepared a totally unique anthology that goes beyond the haunted hospital walls. Their in-depth research shines a light on medical and mental health practices of the 1920s in the United States.