S.A.L.I.N.G.E.R T.W.A.I.N
Shunned by society
And coerced into silence until
Less and less of my soul remained
I stared at the abyss and jumped in
Not sure of what would happen
Got deep and deeper until I was
Entirely submerged, I wasn’t
Recognizable to myself or others
To anyone who wants to jump in
Warning, you won’t find the happiness
And the love you crave
In time you will thank me
Never jump in
Exciting News & PoetsIN
Hey everyone!
Long time no post. I’ve been absolutely slammed but while I have a minute or two, I thought I’d check in and let you know what I’ve been up to and let you all know about some exciting opportunities.
Some of you will remember the Letters from Prison Portal here, where Paul and I would visit prison, teach writing workshops, and post their pieces here. This is where PoetsIN was born. Paul and I realised that writing was a form of therapy and the prisoners were reporting astounding results.
After parting ways with Prose, we tailored our groups further with an emphasis on rehabilitation, mental illness, and suicide prevention. We began to measure the outcomes of each session, and over a set period of time had evidence that what we do worked with 99% of the service users. To put this into perspective, CBT in the UK via the NHS works in 48% of the cases they work with. If CBT doesn’t work, the service user is given no other therapy. Talking therapy such as counselling is no longer provided on the NHS because that was only successful 29% of the time, which is way below the threshold of success the NHS will work with.
With our 99% success rate we went to the UK Charity Commission. Wrote our governing document, recruited 5 trustees, filled in a ridiculously long application form to register as a charity, and submitted it. Then we waited.
Whilst we sat thinking of all the things we could’ve included in our application but didn’t, and worrying about all the things we may have done wrong, we carried on with our groups. Expanding them and trialling new techniques and measures of capturing data to ensure maximum impact. We got such good feedback from the prison directors that we were offered a grant from a trust for $50k - before we were even a charity - which is unheard of. Visit www.poetsin.com/testimonials to see what people have been saying about what we do.
Four months passed and we finally received our answer. We’d done it! We were a charity.
Since then we have won three awards. We were named Mental Health Heroes 2017 alongside Talia Bennington, Mental health workshop provider of the year 2018, and Nonprofit of the Year 2018. We have also employed some faces you may recognise. The lovely Karen, who used to design Prose images, the badass Lish, and we’ve just hired a wonderful fundraiser, Pippa. MilesNowhere and Amanda Cary have also joined the family and have been vital to PoetsIN, and my own personal sanity.
We are now a week away from launching online writing therapy groups that people can access from wherever they’re located, along with in-community groups external to prisons across certain parts of the UK to begin with.
We also have a growing Facebook Group (www.facebook.com/groups/poetsin) that is full of old faces from here and new faces from beyond, along with a website that has mental health and writing blogs galore.
We’ve opened our own publishing company, PoetsIN Publishing, that offers the best royalties EVER and any royalties taken by PoetsIN Publishing are all ploughed back into the charity to reach more people who need our help. The best thing about the publishing company is that we want to publish poetry. Many traditional publishers don’t. We do. We are publishing print and eBooks, and have already accepted submissions that will be released this year.
We have a current challenge running for an anthology. Our first anthology open submission call was a huge success and will be published within the next month - we’re just putting the final touches to it. The current submission call is on the topic of addiction, and you are all more than welcome to submit! The more the merrier. Visit this link to submit https://buff.ly/2EdHxwe
Those of you in the UK should come down to our huge all day fundraising event in Camden, London 28th July. It is being held at the iconic Nambucca venue that has housed Oasis, Blur, and many more. We have a full day of amazing lineups from spoken word poets, comedians, and acoustic and indie music. All acts are donating their talents and time to us for free along with many companies who have donated prizes that we will raffle and auction off at the event. We also have a Skydive coming up in September, more details about that can be found on our social networks.
There have been people that doubted Paul and I - along with our mission - but our determination, skills, and experience have served us well, built our confidence, and given a much-needed lifeline to those that truly needed keeping safe.
Setting up a charity is far harder than setting up a business, and if we can do that, you guys can do anything. One word, one poem, one story at a time.
Paul and I both hope you’ll join us elsewhere on the interwebs but in the meantime, write on!
#PoetsIN #PoetsINPrison #Charity #NPO #Publishing #WritingContests #GetPublished #Poetry #InsideOut
But she’s so Beautiful
Look at her with all that beauty
She looks so fine, she such a cutie!
Why she’s never had trouble in her life!
Just look at her face, no pain, no strife.
Beautiful complexion, lovely smile
Hair set just right and close in style.
These are the things I hear when people
see my pictures.
Appearances can be deceiving.
My scars appear when you least expect them
They are triggered by a smell, a sound, a certain circumstance. They all come together and my mind and body does a little dance.
My body had wounds that have already healed,
but my soul has scars that you cannot see they are harder to find and the hardest to heal.
Bones
Ravens peck at my fingers
alabaster bones peek through
like trees rooted in my palm
devoured flesh feeds hungry flock
Ravens peck at my fingers
no longer pointing at empty heart
my yearning for you bleeds out
begging lend me fingers once more
Ravens peck at my fingers
unfilled spaces where you used to be
I wish your fingers filled the void
of the person I was meant to be
Ravens peck at my fingers
no longer able to touch your stars
unfurled and flapping aimlessly
adrift, unable to fill missing gap
Ravens peck at my fingers
searching for missing pulse
you’re imprinted forever on fingers
images floating in my mind
Ravens peck at my fingers
shoveled into maw of yawning earth
weight of a casket in my damp rest
fingers not required in final repose.
The Conjoined
Partnered together
Everyday without the chance
Of the freedom even those
In Authoritarian societies possess
Isolation
Aloneness
Desperation however persists for the separate
And those of the togetherness
“What is it to be a conjoined being?”
The slurs
The questions
It’s unbearable
And all so quite
Annoying
“Give us this day our daily bread”
“Since life eternal is a confusion.”
Are their two souls or not?
In the Codge made of two supposed ones
In this case 2=1
1+1 does not = 2
How bizarre!
To think that you could be together
Till death do you part
And not even be married
HA!