EQUILIBRIUM - Summer Issue

If you haven't checked out Equilibrium: Magazine for Wellbeing's latest issue (Summer Issue 49), why not?

GET ON IT.

The Politics and Power of Words

Tuesday 16th was the launch of the poetry anthology I compiled for CoolTan Arts, Diagnosis: Hysteria? Prescription: Hysteria! - the final product of the women's poetry group I ran there last year. The event had the dual purpose of launching both our poetry book and also celebrating CoolTan's new venue. They're still on the Walworth Rd, but have just moved to the other side of the road, and have - drum roll, please - an INDOOR TOILET (luxury!) and other lovely things like windows and a view. 

I'll miss their old warehouse in some ways - it certainly had character - but think I can get over that in the face of not having to use a portaloo. Though I will miss the cat from the warehouse next door, who used to flirt with me whenever it was sunny. Meow. 

It was a great event, with fantastic artwork exhibited, and fancy guests, like the local GP/sexy TV doctor, Jonty Heaversedge. We also had readings from some of the women who contributed to the book. The Forward explains the title a bit (buy the book, buy the book!), but you can also check out CoolTan's newly launched online magazine, CoolFruit, where you can read an article by one of their members which takes a closer look at hysteria through the ages. Oh yeah, or buy the book.

In honour of the occasion, rather than reading one of my own poems from the anthology, as planned (I also read some of my students' poems, who couldn't make it), I instead read a poem I wrote on the tube on the way there, inspired by/in honour of the event. I feel quite strongly about some of the issues that surround our work and the lives of the country's most vulnerable - you'd never have guessed - such as the impact of political policies and the state of the mental health services - check out my article about how funding cuts, etc, are effecting places like CoolTan (after you've read my poem, obvs!).

Let me know what you think....

The Politics and Power of Words

Your 'skivers not strivers' rhetoric

Don't give a shit about our mental health

Disadvantaged for not having a dick

And not being born into wealth

I'm not hiding behind closed shutters

Don't believe what it says in the Mail

I'm doing my best, we're doing our best

Though it feels like you're helping us fail

We know the meaning of work

Have you pulled yourself up from the brink?

Have you hit rock bottom and started again?

Have you actually stopped to think

What your language is doing?

'Cos I'm not a 'hard-working family'

But that doesn't mean I'm not contributing

To this world, with love and integrity

So, I'll write emails like nobody's watching

Read the papers like I've never been hurt

Speak 'til people start listening

And believe in the power of words

Photos of the event by Amy Bradshaw

These be the verses #2

Staying in the mystical realm of the poetic imagination, or rather staying on the theme of poetry and my recent amblings in this district, there are a few things I forgot to say in my last post...

1) We are doing a bit of a recruitment drive for my poetry group at CoolTan Arts, so if anyone is interested in joining (girls only, I'm afraid) or knows of anyone who might be (friends working in community arts: are you working with any groups which have some creative ladies who might fancy joining our very supportive and welcoming group?) please get in touch! We are working towards a publication, and all levels are welcome. 

2) I also need to share, my week was made last week when one of my lovely colleagues at CoolTan emailed me in the FORM OF A HAIKU! Completely unprompted. Just a beautifully concise message in ancient Japanese poetic form. More people should do things like this. It makes the world a better place.

Send me a haiku

It breaks the monotony

Of shit life admin

3) I have just read Jeanette Winterson's exquisite autobiography: Why be happy when you can be normal?, and had to go out straight away and buy my own copy, so I can have it and lend it to people. I read this passage about our need for poetry, and what I see as the power of the arts, and wanted to share it:

I was confused about sex and sexuality, and upset about the straightforward practical problems of where to live, what to eat, and how to do my A levels. 

I had no one to help me, but the T.S. Eliot [book] helped me.

So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn't be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers - a language powerful enough to say it how it is.

It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place. 

(pp39-40)

Discuss...