There are some poems and performances that stay with you, because when you hear them you are transported through the words to another place. It’s as if you are actually there in the poem and form a memory from the visualisation during listening. That was my experience when I first heard Amy share the poem in this edition of Write Speak Recover. I have a vivid memory of being in that kitchen as an observer, my heart aching to reach out and offer some kindness in the chaos. I find that scene popping into my head from time to time. Amy’s recent music release features a song named Alternative Diagnostic Tool which has the lyrics - “Are they staging an intervention? Do you hide shit you should mention?” And that mentioning of hidden things - the writing of them and the sharing of them is what this project (and now Poetry Society group!) is built from. Amy’s courage to skillfully tell difficult stories with humour and reflection helps others understand what she’s been through and offers some perspective and opportunity to have empathy for the journeys she and other people travel. Over to Amy...
Please be mindful that WSR content can be thematically sensitive.
Amy
When I was already a total grown up, I looked freakishly young. I once got stopped by police on my way home from a night out because they thought I was a literal lost child. I was so surprised to be questioned on the whereabouts of my parents that I momentarily forgot my own name. Suspicious. So theatre directors loved me. They could get me in to play really messed up children without having to hire chaperones or explain terrible adult themes to me. I had that dream combo of innocent face and hard eyes that had seen things. So this one time, I’m playing a nine year old, doing a crazy thirteen shows a week, and on my seventh round of auditions for a big musical, (all while enjoying meandering deep-and-meaningfuls late into the night with my cast members over whiskey), when my voice suddenly disappears. Turns out, my vocal chords had haemorrhaged (sexy). So I had to have some cheeky surgery and then be mute. MUTE! Tangential, verbose, incessantly chatty ME. It was a hellscape. I had been warned that even a single cough, sneeze or syllable could result in scar tissue that would fuck my voice up for life. By this point, I’d already had feedback that I was not only a sleeptalker but a sleepscreamer, from a roomful of traumatised girls on a school trip. So I spent the month or so staying awake 24/7 and concentrating very hard on not talking. I also avoided humans because they made me wanna say stuff so bad! Eventually, I realised that if I didn’t leave the house, I’d go insane. So I had a quick walk around the estate I lived on. But when I got home, the back half of my bicycle had been nicked. On no sleep, and with every word I had wanted to say for a month bouncing around my skull in a deeply maddening way, I ran upstairs and vomited a strange, Parisienne (I don’t know either) ode to the back half of my bike into a notebook. After that, I couldn’t stop. I wrote all of the noise out of my head and even got some fucking sleep.
I already had a sense that my early life had been unusually extreme. And I knew that I probably needed to talk - and write - about it. But I just couldn’t find the words... So instead, I wrote fluffy shit about people I secretly fancied and I hopped around the spoken word scene accidentally winning slams and getting published with my cutesy little cheeks and clever but skin-deep poems.
It was really only a few years ago, having finally become someone who could speak openly on all things fucked up, that the stuff I’d been through started creeping into my poetry. It’s hard to say from the inside, but I feel like it emerged slowly and then like bathwater falling through the ceiling. Nowadays, I think you can smell the trauma in almost everything I write. But I hope that there’s still a bit of fluff in there too because, like, the world is on fire and we all need a good laugh, right?
Table Manners
When you accidentally zip your neck into your jacket,
Bend your thumbnail back,
Or crack your elbow off a doorframe-
That lovechild of shock and pain.
Imagine now that moment but extended
For six months, a year, a decade.
Old brain fear and prudence activated:
There is danger in your choice of eating noises-
Show that gratitude.
And reason in the way
You never tuck your legs under the table
But instead sit almost side saddle
Prepared to leg it when the frying pan is raised.
You bathed, when you were little,
In that kitchen sink,
Enjoying your own chubby body in the mirror,
Forgetting every time the sharp edge of the press above,
Associated bathing with self love and head pain,
Later relegated to that narrow galley
While the others ate their burgers in front of the telly
Runt and Dog and Smartarse.
Once, the deep fat fryer went on fire
And you shouted Mam, Mam!
Only to be told that there was no excuse
For leaving before finishing.
You folded chips into a gaping mouth
As flames licked wallpaper and slinked along the counter,
As your brother ran frantic and disobedient
To Mick, the fireman living in the corner house,
Who grabbed his mini fire extinguisher
And doused the heat surrounding your submission.
I am thirty-eight and taking what I'm given:
One part paranoia, one betrayal,
One disloyalty, some rage and occasional care.
I see the way he treats his friends, his music colleagues.
He is capable, therefore, it must be me.
My brother watches Animaniacs
With garlic bread or Findus Crispy Pancakes on his plate.
I wait next door to be excused
Or I observe the neighbour kids playing a game of Kick the Can
Through stained net curtains
When I'm grounded inexplicably
Or I am very late for junior infants yet again:
Ms. Power crouches and repeats
Please tell your mammy for me- one more time-
School starts at nine
As if me, five weeks turned three,
Has any influence.
I am an ant for crushing.
Open pack of rashers on the turn.
Redundant single shoe.
Unwanted candle gift set.
Yet on Sunday mornings, I am worshipped.
The most special person he has ever met-
So gorgeous.
A suspected figment of his wild imagination
And he says he needs to get me fed
And that I can do anything I put my mind to,
That this big world is all mine.
So long as I am sunshine and have no opinions.
As it happens,
It's unhealthy to sit still and finish dinner
While the room around you burns,
To be well-versed in cold dissociation,
To rehearse new ways to praise him
So he doesn't call you names,
To second guess even your best intentions
Just in case there's something in them
That could be mistaken for a drone attack,
To spend your precious life
Reading another article about 'The Vulnerable Narcissist' or BPD
Or whether autism can present ever as cruelty or lying
In an effort to self train as his support worker.
While I have quietly become learnèd
In personality disorders and their comorbidities,
Some easy-going girl whose parents sat with her at mealtimes
To converse about her day and theirs and left-wing politics
Is getting home to cuddles and spaghetti bolognese her partner's made,
To levels of care and curiosity that I can barely fathom.
How to paint the 4D of a smiley who requires very little
But would have the self esteem to leave if he fucked up
Beside a stalwart who asks endless questions
But endures straight-up abuse,
Who challenges extensively
But also emptily and in a careful tone
Because he, maybe, really needs a friend
And don't we all of us deserve, maybe, acceptance
And, and, isn't vitriol projectiled just a bid for love?
And somewhere way beyond my skin, he's rage-crying
And table wood beneath my palms becomes Formica
And my brother's silence is adored,
My fat but quiet indignation dangerous, therefore ignored
And I will leave eventually.
But wouldn't it be tragic if the answer was an article away?
And wouldn't it be awful if an A in English or a sports day medal was the thing?
Or I could sing him something
Or I'll paint a picture of her for the blackened fridge
Or dance alone at his friend's party like I don't need anyone
And haven't noticed that he's sneaking ketamine
Or run around and round the Big Green
As the sun goes down and kids go home to dinner
Til the man who volunteers at the athletics club on my estate exclaims,
She won't win any hundred metre sprint
But I have never seen a child so tenacious.
On The Writing Process
The best way I’ve found to describe what writing is to me is by comparing it to peeing: it just has to be done. Sometimes, because of life things, I don’t have time to let myself write, and I genuinely feel a bit, or a lot, ill if that goes on for too long. In terms of this whole process thing, I really don’t think I have one. Like a lot of other writers, a poem comes at me when I least expect it and I just have to catch the fucker! If I don’t have time, or a pen, or some silence, it’s gone forever which massively sucks for it and me. I will say that I’ve always been a stubborn little shit about editing. That is to say, I won’t. A poem either comes out fully formed or I’m like bye bitch. Recently, I’ve challenged myself to pick up these discarded scraps and finish them, or I’ve met with others to sit down and write, which has actually been pretty fucking great (shout out to Girlbomb and Skinner)! But I’ll always prefer that frenzy when you forget where you are and then it’s 4am and there’s a poem on your lap.
On recovery, eurgh tropey, but... I sometimes think I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t accidentally found poetry. This past year in particular, it has turned up for me like a hot, wordy firefighter. Apart from with close friends, I’m quite private about my early life. And then my poetry just blurts out all my business and I’m like SHUT. UP. But yeah, it was rough. And even though I got away from it as soon as I could, it’s had a profound impact that persists despite my best efforts. I think this is maybe the hardest thing for survivors and something that the lucky ones who were loved and cared for don’t get. The long term effects aren’t just mental, psychological, emotional (people are pretty clued up on all that now). There are a multitude of physical problems that survivors are significantly more likely to be living with. For example, I have a developmental illness that I’ve been told is only seen in survivors of war or of persistent child abuse. It’s with me every day. I also have extremely weak hands and have broken or fractured several fingers over and over. It was only a few years ago that I finally explained why to my friends... And then there’s the social layer. While all my peers were dating and travelling and writing solo shows, maybe even with a little help from the Bank of Dad, I was absolutely reeling from what had happened to me, flinching at attempted hugs, and finding the money for rent and food. Essentially, I’m really fucking behind. And yeah, I’m supposed to be on heroin or dead. So there’s this rhetoric of You’re doing so well, considering. But what if I want more? What if I want to just be doing well full stop? So I circle back to poetry.
My most recent fail - or maybe remnant is kinder - has been to find myself in a classically behind-closed-doors abusive relationship after priding myself for so many years on making smart choices for myself in that category. And it was the capacity for resilience, endurance, and empathy I developed as a child that kept me there for so long. I escaped last year, still madly in love and teeming with dangerous levels of compassion. Writing has helped me to work all that out. I love it and I need it. I’m even starting to recognise that my preference for privacy (I’ve never had socials and am pretty internet-shy) is perhaps a bit ungenerous to my fellow survivors. Some small thing I say could help, I don’t know. But that’s why I said yes to this project after saying no to everything ever involving putting work online. It’s also why I’ve finally found a compromise that helps me to share poetry, music stuff, and the occasional bit of news. A mailing list! Yes, Hello, The Nineties. Join it here if you had a fucked up childhood or your ex told you were going nowhere. I’ll try my best to make you feel a little less alone.
Favourite poets, poetry nights, books or other resources
My current favourite poetry night is Orbit. Non-wanky and the host has created a really friendly vibe and a lovely community of poets. The London scene seems to go through phases and I’m pretty allergic to overtly virtue-signally or trauma-dumpy stuff, which occasionally comes back into fashion. I don’t think any topic needs to be off the table (there’s a lot of heavy shit in my work), but I do love it when the poets are at least aiming to give the audience an entertaining, artistically interesting, or meaningful time while they’re at it. Can also recommend a gorgeous event for rappers and hiphop artists that runs monthly at Morocco Bound. On the subject of music, by the time you are reading this, I will have added to my thin internet presence by sharing some experimental folk hiphop stuff on Bandcamp. So if anyone out there has a hankering for some bagpipe trap or would rather find out if they have ADHD through the medium of rap than by filling in a long-ass form, check that out here.
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.
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If you need support, here are some resources:
Samaritans
Alcohol Change
Recovery Dharma
Alcoholics Anonymous
This article was brought to you by Tim Foley and Graham Thomas.