Ameer’s poetry screams out with things only he has seen or imagined, shared in carefully curated landscapes that take you on a (sometimes shocking) journey. It seemed suitable to share this edition on Halloween, a day when lines between worlds real and unreal, of the living and the dead are blurry. There’s an electricity in Ameer’s work, I can feel it in my spine as I read, as if on a tight rope. His words draw you in, stop you, shake you, show you a world woven with dark but beautiful things. I revisit his poems a number of times to see what I missed, how I feel differently about the words. He has a way of taking you to intimate places before sweeping out to global heights, to other universes and across time and history - into the natural and unnatural. His poetry coupled with his recovery story and understanding of humanity, suffering and finding grace in the darkest of places is powerful. Take a deep breath and step into Ameer’s mind. - Tim Foley, Founder, Write Speak Recover
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Ameer Azad
I’m a 26-year-old writer in London. I met Tim and immediately found his project interesting. I had experience with alcoholism in my late teens and I believe in the current landscape, our stories can be sensationalised and sanitised. My personal rule for writing is that I don’t sanitise, as this is how we find that greater connection with each other, even if it is through ugly things. As well as this, a lot of my own work stems from my experience as an inpatient in psychiatric wards, with people who were never given a chance, abused and institutionalised by those meant to care for them. A good deal of my poems deal with altered states of consciousness through fringe experiences, and seeing the world from this unique lens.
Harvest in the Land of the Dead
In the land of the dead, at dawn
Dozens ride rowboats across the mint lake as fishers of men
With constant grins - for the lingcod, who swirls with unblinking eyes now in them
The mint green lake reroutes itself to irrigate their soil
Grasped by loving bone hands that shape the soil
And rows move forth to till the soil
Great, swaying, skull faced oxen plough the red earth
Led by skeleton children playing their legs as flutes to enchant the beast
With scores of men and women without breath, arching xylophone spines as they sweat without envy for a bounty of their own
And calcium domes flake in the sun
The clocks have no hands
And children do not grow
The townsfolk observe their mating animals that grow and multiply with great fascination
Drinking moonshine, chewing betel leaf
And then rakes descend and pull and the fields are a whitish green and lanky figures bend towards the saffron, towards corn, towards wheat
As a thousand scythes heave into heavens, the iron crescents bearing winks of light at the curve
And now it is the harvest!
Now it is done
Everything is complete
They are dancing as if on the surface of the sun
They are singing old molasses songs,
They make love.
It is a nation of the dead
And all who make up this nation
Will always love you
On Writing
Poetry for me, is about tapping into the repressed unconscious. I put on some music and enter a meditative state, writing down anything that gives me the right feeling, completely out of order. I will begin with a theme but won’t stick to it hard and fast. Afterwards I’ll try to put it together, sometimes finding a brand new meaning. In terms of my recovery, all the time you’ll hear others say what you are, and a long journey for me was to break out of that, realising that the demands of society don’t always align with reality as a whole. And at the age of 18, I knew I had to dedicate myself to establishing my own truth, totally unconcerned with the corrupting, dominant narratives that are used to label and judge us, even in this more accepting era, where the increased knowledge about psychological concepts that can also be used in a reductive way. In essence, I want to show strength for myself, and for others like me.
More than books and poems, my capacity for writing came from experience. I was in and out of mental hospitals in my late teens. The other patients were in a really bad state and would suffer unimaginable horrors, and would be routinely demeaned by the staff, same as me. Though I never noticed, there is also a problem with sexual abuse in these places. It can even, and quite easily, get to that.
There’s so much terror and suffering in that place you can hear them in agony all day and all night. At first, I’ll admit, I was afraid of them, but I quickly found a deep kinship. Through myself and others, I understood suffering, and it breaks my heart that they will still be considered monsters. There were lawyers, teachers, trappers, drug addicts. Just about any kind of person. My closest friend there was a medical student who had worked in the same hospital not long before! The rules of outer society did not exist there, and we were all reduced to a similar standing. I won’t sugarcoat it. We became animals as there was one thing to do: survive or dominate the ones oppressing you so you can survive. I was the lucky one, I had people to support me, but when they would be released, they were essentially left to die because no one would care.
I didn’t know their pasts, some could have been bad people but it was terrible to see anybody in a state where they had little agency. And so, I saw a great heroism in them, more than any so-called ‘respectable person’ I had met. Though completely unseen, there are battles of life and death fought all the time, and still they’d be hated. There was a young man who was almost saintly, he was deeply kind to everyone, I remember someone was having a problem and immediately ran to help, as if he was a nurse. But his delusions would make him really angry and he’d lash out. Never physically, but he was still put in isolation: a room without windows, just a mattress and toilet. He screamed all night until his screams put us to sleep. When he was out, he was a zombie, I will never forget how his face was frozen, hobbling out the room a day later. And he will still be a better man than me.
Those are heroes to me. People without the typical qualities, it was true bravery. I used to believe I was a pessimist, and some may say that focusing on suffering doesn’t help, we have to just look at self improvement and happy platitudes about loving yourself. But how can you get there without facing these things? We can say, oh yes, we know about war and suffering and dead people so we don’t need to. That is very limiting to me, and it enforces that such people will remain inhuman, just out your periphery, where it’s comfortable. I used to think I was a pessimist, but after there I couldn’t be more sure of my hopefulness, and the will of the human spirit.
For nearly ten years, it has been my goal to immortalise people like this. The world is cruel, so we have to understand each other to live in it.
Favourite poets, poetry nights, books or other resources:
Raymond Carver
Osamu Dazai
Friedrich Nietszche
Carl Jung
James Baldwin
Irvine Welsh
Hermann Hesse
William S Burroughs
Mary Gaitskill
Write Speak Recover, in collaboration with TheNeverPress is an open, free collection of original portraits of poets using their art to find strength in their recovery journey from any form of dis-ease.
We invite you to follow Write Speak Recover on Instagram and to reach out to Tim Foley at WSR or us directly at the zine to learn more, or put yourself forward to be featured in this initiative.
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If you need support, here are some resources:
Samaritans
Alcohol Change
Recovery Dharma
Alcoholics Anonymous
Be kind. Stay present. One moment after the next.
This article was put together by Tim Foley, the WSR contributor, Graham Thomas and Rosie Cook.
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