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
The Bones of Us
Leaves fell to the ground that day
Your tears spoke when you didn't know what to say
We died in that moment
Flatline
I turned my back on you
The silence confirmed the truth
The anger in your eyes
It couldn't hide your lies
Like the tears that spoke when you didn't know what to say
Urging me to walk away
It was as if the world had ceased
Guilt was your silent beast
Waiting to tear us apart
Each lie a scar on my heart
As the air grew still, and the world turned grey
The leaves lay on the floor in disarray
While the heavens cracked and fell to the ground
The birds remained silent, even the ravens made no sound
And then the thunder started
The horses of the dead came to collect the departed
The bones of us
Left amongst the leaves and the dust…
and the bullshit.
© Richard Withey. All rights reserved.
BBYD: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Books Before You Die: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
We continue with our regular feature within which we review the books that urged to read before we shuffle off our mortal coils. As always, there are no rules or regulations, just the prerequisite of a person’s emphatic belief that a book must be read before death takes us all. This one is one of the mainstays in the books-to-read category and has struck a chord with many over the years.
The Author
Plath was born in Boston in 1932. She began writing poetry as a child and wrote stories in her mid-teens. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical, with the names of places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef since the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression. Plath died by suicide a month after its first UK publication.
The book
When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into serious depression as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take her aspirations seriously. Set in a world bounded by the Cold War on one side and the sexual on the other, it looks at the madness of the world. Questions are pondered about reality and how it can be confronted. A witty yet very upsetting novel.
The good bits
This novel takes you on a journey of an extraordinary mind-Ester Greenwood- and her inability to understand the world of relationships around her. As madness creeps in, you become drawn in, not fully knowing what to expect.
The bad bits
I found myself confused as to what was real or in Ester's mind. The madness seemed a bit too sane, her discovery of the disappointments of men and their sexual nature did somewhat bore me. A shame as on the whole, the story is excellently portrayed for the era.
Favorite quotes:
"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenberg's". What a start!! Had me gripped with the very first sentence.
"Jay Cee's ugly as sin...I bet that old husband of hers turns out all the lights before he gets near her..."
“That’s one of the reasons I never wanted to get married. The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.”
Verdict:
Definitely a book everyone should try to read. It's an amazing insight into a disturbed mind. Books to read before you die? I'd miss it if I didn't see it on a shelf in the Books Before You Die Library!
Review by Carrie who attends our weekly Creative Writing Workshop for our Letters From Prison Project. Follow her and read her poetry and stories on Prose here where she is @Squeakypeewee01.
Well, I don't know about you, but I'm in. I've had a copy on my shelves for a while, that's it in the picture on the blog version of this article; so I shall be reading it over the Christmas break. Check this out NOW on the blog site as it has lovely visuals and links that cannot be posted in app.
http://blog.theprose.com/2016/12/bbyd-bell-jar-sylvia-plath/
B
7 Day Countdown Challenge Winners
Greetings Prosers,
We hope you are all enjoying the shiny, bright and lovely new Bookstore that finally launched today!
Our launch day extravaganza continues with us announcing the winners of the challenges over the 7 day countdown. Without further ado, here they are:
The very first challenge, which was a challenge to write the first chapter of your bestseller. This was won by @RichWithey who wins 1,000 coins to spend in the bookstore for his entry ‘Yesterday had 48 hours’.
The second challenge was to retweet our pinned Tweet. We chose two people at random, who are @Confusheyuss and @Cameolover93 – both of whom win 500 coins each to spend in the bookstore.
Friday’s challenge was to share our post on Facebook. The winner of 1,000 coins to spend in the bookstore is @Firdaus.
In the challenge to like our post on Instagram and tag friends, we had two winners of 500 coins each. The lucky buggers who get the shiny prizes are @misslittle and @Lynn
Sunday’s challenge was to write a micropoem describing your favourite book, without using its name. The winner of 1,000 shiny bookstore coins is @Cajen for what we believe was The Martian in ’locusts (silver ones).
The winner for Monday’s task was simply tasked with getting someone to join Prose. @Izzy_A rocked that and has won the 1,000 coin prize.
In our final challenge, we went all out and decided to give away 2,000 coins. The person that shared the post as many times on social media as possible, tagging us so we could see, was @JayChimera.
Congratulations to you all, and thank you not only for making Prose what it is, but also for joining in and helping us spread the word this week and we hope for many weeks to come. We will credit the coins to the winners within the next few days.
Prose
