Nonfiction can do beautiful things with language, symbolism, and imagery just like fiction does. In my annotating practice lately, I’m trying to notice these elements more in nonfiction. Thankfully, I caught the way willow plants appear in Madness by Antonia Hylton, a book that documents the history of a historically Black asylum in Maryland from its founding in 1911 to its closing in 2004. Willow plants are really a gorgeous detail in the book.
In the beginning of the book, Hylton writes about how willow plants were harvested by 12 Black men, Crownsville’s first patients, as they built (by force) the institution they were meant to be healed in from the ground up. Willow plants are brought up again in the middle of the book as materials patients, who were often skilled artisans, used to in weaving. Then, at end of the book, in the most beautiful, full-circle way willows come up again when Black activists return to Crownsville with willow baskets full of rose petals to honor the people who lived and died on Crownsville’s land.
To annotate willows plants in Madness, you’ll need 7 tabs.
One tab will be for your tab key. I recommend choosing a pen or highlighter color that coordinates with your tab color, then highlight the sentences with willow plants on each of the pages you tab. Page details below.
TAB Ch 2, p 21
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
“Together, they began to harvest willow plant, clear the forest, and begin the back-breaking work of building an asylum.”
TAB Ch 2, p 26
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
“At night, these men went to sleep in a newly converted willow curing plant near one of the ponds.”
TAB Ch 20, p 304
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
“One hundred and eleven years ago, the first twelve men came to this field in chains. As Superintendent Robert Winterode watched closely, they tested the fibers and harvested willow in the cold, before the spring ushered in new growth. The men were then marched down to Crownsville Road, where they were forced to build themselves a Hospital for the Negro Insane.”
TAB Ch 3, p 42
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
“Photographs capture patients weaving rugs or tugging on willow plants.”
TAB Ch 20, p 309
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
“That morning, Janice set out woven willow baskets that were full of pink, yellow, red, and white rose petals and walked around the crowd holding out a bucket full of tiny papers, each containing hte name of a different patient.”
TAB Ch 20, p 309
HIGHLIGHT and/or UNDERLINE:
“We peered through the brush, down the path where, one century ago, men had pulled apart the willow plant and had been marched to their fate.”
Annotate With Sara 