Tag: suicide

Hydracropsychic by T.W. Kriner

hydracropsychic
Cover of T.W. Kriner’s book In the Mad Water

I love the word. It aptly describes
the deadly allure of Niagara’s vibes:
primal urges to be swimming or flying
that often end up with somebody dying.

Source:  T.W. Kriner.  The Red Pill and Other Poems. Buffalo: J & J Publishing, 2026.

It is well known that Niagara Falls produces a mesmerizing effect, that draws people to it, and overwhelms the senses, drawing some to commit or attempt to commit suicide, as documented in interviews with survivors, and in the words of many of the poets represented on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website. Describing this phenomenon, Kriner  coined the word hydracropsychic in his book In the Mad Water: Two Centuries of Adventure and Lunacy at Niagara Falls,   J & J Publishing, Buffalo, 1999. p. 14: “The water, the altitude, and the distracted mind may combine to produce what might be called a hydracropsychic effect.” 

The word “hydracropsychic” was later used by Joyce Carol Oates in her book The Falls, published in 2004. In it, a fictional doctor writing a fictional letter describes “an uncanny effect called the hydracropsychic,” a “morbid condition” that has been known to “render even the will of the active, robust man in the prime of life temporarily invalid, as if under the spell of a malevolent hypnotist,” with the result, in the direst cases, that “the unfortunate victim throws himself to his doom if he is not prevented.”

See  Wiktionary: Suggest a word/August 2009 for a discussion of the word hydracropsychic (you will have to scroll down the page to find it).

 

The Niagara Dead by T. W. Kriner

dead
The Casket of George Stathakis, After His Fatal Attempt to go Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel, July 5, 1930.
Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Jumpers and boaters and fame-hungry fools
end up in the gorge, in the eddies and pools,
or spattered on stone, or locked in the ice.
There’s no way to die here the sane would call nice.

Source: T. W. Kriner, 2025.  First published in T.W. Kriner.  The Red Pill and Other Poems. Buffalo: J & J Publishing, 2026.

T. W. Kriner is the author of Journeys to the Brink of Doom (1997), In the Mad Water (1999), Twelve Dozen Four-by-Fours (2025), and The Call of Tawiskaro (2025).  He lives in a Western New York swamp with his wife and two cats.

Kriner says:
About three years ago I began writing what I call four-by-four poems:   four lines with four beats per line, usually with a pair of rhyming couplets.  The challenge for me was to do at least one or more of the following in each poem:  tell a story;  paint a picture;  evoke or share a memory;  express a political opinion;  convey my view on a particular subject;  do something else while trying to get a laugh.   I’ve recently posted a fair number of them at  All Poetry .com, if you’d care to sample. 

Niagara Gorge, 1993 by T. W. Kriner

gorge
Niagara Gorge From the Canadian Side
Photo by Andrew Porteus, October 17, 2021

There was nowhere else for her to go.
She looked to the depths, fighting vertigo.
When she jumped, she took all her hopes and fears.
Her bones weren’t discovered for many long years.

Source:  T.W. Kriner, 2025.  First published in T.W. Kriner.  The Red Pill and Other Poems. Buffalo: J & J Publishing, 2026.

This one is loosely based on the death of my friend’s child.

T. W. Kriner is the author of Journeys to the Brink of Doom (1997), In the Mad Water (1999), Twelve Dozen Four-by-Fours (2025), and The Call of Tawiskaro (2025).  He lives in a Western New York swamp with his wife and two cats.

Kriner says:
About three years ago I began writing what I call four-by-four poems:   four lines with four beats per line, usually with a pair of rhyming couplets.  The challenge for me was to do at least one or more of the following in each poem:  tell a story;  paint a picture;  evoke or share a memory;  express a political opinion;  convey my view on a particular subject;  do something else while trying to get a laugh.   I’ve recently posted a fair number of them at  All Poetry .com, if you’d care to sample. 

Kirk Raymond Jones by T. W. Kriner

kirk
Handwritten note to T.W. Kriner from Kirk Jones

I once met the man. We spoke for a bit.
He autographed something. That was pretty much it.
He went over Niagara once and lived.
On his second attempt, the poor guy got shivved.

Source: The author, ©2025. First published in T.W. Kriner.  The Red Pill and Other Poems. Buffalo: J & J Publishing, 2026.

The note reads: To Ted Kriner: a great historian who knows the true spirit of the falls. I trust we will meet again together we will unlock the secrets of Niagara. Your friend Kirk Jones, Niagara Falls Survivor

Read about Kirk Raymond Jones

A Seneca Clan Mother Reflects on the Recent Suicide at the American Fall by T. W. Kriner

seneca
A View of Niagara Falls in 1799 by Edmund Henn
Watercolour wash by Jane Merryweather. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library

Before the purblind European eye
had cast its greedy stare upon the stones
that cracked before the flood like brittle bones,
the Onguiaarhas chose this place to die.

Their name became Niagara to the Whites
—it’s all that’s left of them in their disgrace.
They bowed before a demon at this place
and sacrificed their daughters in his rites.

Instead of Hinon, thunder god, they prayed
to Tawiskaro, trickster of the north,
who charmed them with his voice and called them forth
to feed upon their souls—so it is said.

The Onguiaarhas warned us of the fall,
but men still answer to the demon’s call.

Source:  T. W. Kriner.  First published in T.W. Kriner.  The Red Pill and Other Poems. Buffalo: J & J Publishing, 2026.

T. W. Kriner is the author of Journeys to the Brink of Doom (1997), In the Mad Water (1999), Twelve Dozen Four-by-Fours (2025), and The Call of Tawiskaro (2025).  He lives in a Western New York swamp with his wife and two cats.

Kriner says:
Of course the “myth” behind the sonnet was entirely fabricated by me. I continued this story in my recent short story collection The Call of Tawiskaro & Other Tales of Woe and Whimsy. The idea is absurd. I admit that freely. But it was fun.   

I’ve recently posted a fair number of poems at  All Poetry .com, if you’d care to sample.