The other week I wanted to show Bande de Filles aka Girlhood, to 6th Form students in order to get them to come along to the Feminist Club. They had been keen after having Feminista UK coming in to run a workshop with them. Sadly, my efforts at putting colour-posters up, guying popcorn and even buying the DVD specifically to show the film were wasted at this time. It was rather depressing to hear the music at the start repeat in an empty classroom. I guess they’re overworked. And as an English Mentor, I keep giving them extra reading to do as it is!
I’ve been writing for The Norwich Radical for a year now, where I look at the arts through a feminist lens. Girlhood was a film I highlighted for its Feminist credentials. So, I thought this would be an opportune time to highlight the articles I’ve written thus far. You can get a whole list by clicking here.
A burning house made from sound. Five voices salvage all they can from the wreckage. A navigation of all that we lose, find and construct in times when facing the loss of what we consider home and our heritage.
Over the past few months, I have been working on poetry for an Apples & Snakes’ Home Cooking podcast, produced by Post-Everything, and featuring myself and other Burn After Reading poets. It features tracks from Rachel Long, Will Tyas (read by Antosh Wojcik), Sophie Fenella, Carmina Masoliver, Antosh Wojcik. The production is beautiful, with a great balance between the sound of each poet’s voice, and the musical tones throughout it.
After writing about the film Amy, I thought I would share my publication on some poetry I wrote inspired by another iconic jazz musician: Nina Simone.
The poems were curated by Lisa Alvaradoand also include a contribution from Toni Stuart, who I had the pleasure of meeting last year and who has since performed at She Grrrowls.
I’m in my room, listening to Amy Winehouse, having watched the documentary about her, Amy, last night. The main tragedy highlighted, aside from her obvious addiction, was the way she was treated by both her father and on-off partner, Blake. That said, relationships are not perfect, Blake was clearly vulnerable and damaged like Amy, and they cannot claim responsibility for her death. What was sickeningly apparent was that the media did have an enormous part to play in this tragedy. Amy never wanted the fame she got, even said she would give it back if she could, and before she reached such heights said that she would go mad and wouldn’t be able to handle it. Such is the fate of those who die at the hand of the paparazzi, and those who buy into sensationalist tabloid journalism, as covered in the poetry of Amber Tamblyn in Dark Sparkler.
Other than her tragic story, what stood out was her music and talent. Seeing her at her best performing at various stages in her career, lyrics picked out on the screen, provoked a feeling that hit you straight in the gut. Although sometimes not always agreeing with some of the content, for the most part I loved her blend of sarcastic wit, sorrowful heart-wrenching pain, and empowering sentiments such as “in this blue shade, my tears dry on their own”. The songs have always had a slick rhythm to them as well, such as in favourite In My Bed. At the heart of Amy’s music was a desire for connection, and that desire to use music to heal the self and heal others was what kept her writing and recording new material despite the chaos of her personal life. That temptation to self-destruct is also relatable to those of us who have traits of hyper-achievement, for they are two sides of the same coin.
In 2008 I was 19 years old and I wrote a poem called Blanket; as I watched the documentary, I remembered it writing it in response to Amy’s rising success since she moved from Frank to Back to Black, and the pitfalls that were well documented in the media. The poem went as follows:
I want to build myself up to the highest height, just to look down at the fall and be filled with fright. I want to be, the best I can be, prove them wrong about my poetry. Yeah, I want that pretty face, with the tear stains on show, mascara up my eyes, just so that they all know. I want to be perfect, to be a success, I want to be one of the best. I want them all to read my lips, read my mind, then drink myself to destruction at the end of the night.
I want to fall in love again with a good boy, just so he can break my heart, because if I’m in a mess, feel my life is destroyed then it at least provides more material for my art.
And I can just pick up my needle and thread, scrub with soap, the sheets on my bed, try stitching my life up to resemble what was, continue the search for the Wizard of Oz, pray for a change to a non-existent God, click my heels together, come home.
It was about how I could relate to the apparent dichotomy between success and failure, construction and destruction. The only thing I can do is to keep following the path to better myself, and that includes trying not to obsess about what success is and striving for it at the expense of my health. Because it’s a combination of both working and playing hard that can lead to exhaustion. I’ve come a long way since being a teenager and going to university, where getting off-your-face is standard, even on Sundays.
Nowadays, I rarely miss a roast dinner, I make sure to exercise regularly, and although work is always at the front of my mind, I make an effort to carve our significant space for maintaining relationships. I may joke about this being to do with me “getting old”, but actually it’s just finding out more about who I am and what’s important to me. And the fact that I feel it the next day when I’ve only had two pints, probably shows that I can’t take much more. But I often relate to the idea of the “death-wish” as at times there is a flicker of desire, a kind of magnetic pull, to be destructive.
Tony Bennett says in the film that “life teaches you how to live it—if you live long enough.” It is and always will be a tragedy that we don’t get to see Amy prosper, that her bulimia meant she was too weak this last time to fight against the alcohol poisoning she inflicted on herself accidentally. What urged me to write about this was the relatability for young women, and so as this has become self-reflective, I’m sure many others will feel that it could have been anyone, had they not had the time to recover from such a series of events.
The best I can do to take on board Amy’s story is to take inspiration from her creative drive, and keep focused on this. And to not let anyone stop me from doing what I want to do, whether a parent or romantic partner. I’ll never be able to listen to Rehab in a club, but I will listen in my room, or sing along with my mum in the kitchen.
I received a copy of Rebecca Tantony’s Talk you round till dusk by illustrator Anna Higgie, who I met last year when I performed at BoomTown. You can have a peak inside the book to see the beautiful illustrations here. You can also buy some of her work from the book at her Etsy shop.
I fell in love with this book after reading the first piece and it’s become one of my favourite books from Burning Eye Books. The pieces flow between flash fiction, poetry and short stories, each piece with strikingly vivid imagery and captivating stories. Slipping between third and first person, placing a ‘you’ between lines of poetry, leaving you wondering where the stories lie between autobiographical and fiction. This use of the lyrical ‘I’ is something I always find fascinating, and enjoy the element of play this offers.
Much of the work deals with relationships and searching, love and travel. At times it’s heart-breaking: ‘he only liked women who felt safe without colour and peroxide to hide behind.’ At other times it’s liberating:
‘What did you do that for?’
‘I did it for me,’ she said, before the wind set her hair free, spilling it across the sky.
From the statement ‘women don’t normally drink pints,’ I could immediately relate. When the next page spoke of Andalucia, I recalled fond memories of Nerja. Tantony managed to capture the feeling of the place, and its pages fuelled my excitement to carry out the same path and live in Spain: ‘Instead of breaking up we had moved to Spain’ hit me with its poignancy, and yet its humour. With orange blossoms showing the direction for discovery at the end, there is a perfect balance of reality and romance.
Different pieces are intercepted with short poetic descriptions and musings, like notes in a travel journal, such as ‘I found your at sunrise and fell in love with a combination of body parts’. The collection takes the reader across the world, from Spain to India, Cyprus, San Francisco, through a Californian road-trip, to Paris, to Mexico, and ending back in Bristol. Through the turbulence of many characters, of wanderings and wondering whether ‘we might not make it back together in one piece’, at the end of one year and the start of a next, bubbling with excitement with the journeys we might go on, it seems apt to end on the sentiment of We are Braver This Way. In it we find the title quotation: ‘I’ll talk you round till dusk and when the final countdown/comes we’ll be dancing, won’t we?’ Whether we get the happy ending we long for is up to you.
Dr. Breanne Fahs has been quoted to say that when a woman shows her armpit hair it “becomes an act of political resistance because it highlights the presence of an otherwise silent or erased aspect of women’s bodies.” It’s winter, so it’s been an act of political resistance that has been easy to embrace. The picture below is probably the closest I’ll get to exposing my hairy armpits to the world. When not on show, I’m happy to grow! But if I’m honest, there’s a deep-seated attitude ingrained in me that probably underlies just why I will continue to shave in the summer months, despite the fact the hair grows back within what seems like minutes, and with such sensitive skin, it’s near impossible for it to be smooth unless the optimum amount of time is left in between shaves.
How more hippie can you get?
It’s not complex to work out why I’m embarrassed to bare my hair on the beach. I think it’s around 90% of women who remove armpit hair. It even feels a little silly that messages that are so obviously articulated are still able to influence me so powerfully. I remember when I was about seven years old, in Italy, I thought I saw the armpit hair of an older, American girl. It seemed like such a shock to me. I remember telling my Mum, who has, of course, handed down body-hair shame to me like a precious heirloom.
When I started to grow hair there myself, I was still at primary school. A girl saw that I had hair there. It was almost like I hadn’t noticed it myself. I don’t remember thinking anything of it growing there until it was pointed out to me by another girl. This was obviously accompanied by an “urgh!” All it took was these two experienced, strong enough for them to stand out in mind mind all these years later, to form this idea that I’m not presentable in my natural state.
Maybe one day, I’ll become brave enough to step out in the real world like this. But for now, this is as Feminist as my armpits get. Meow. Just had a massive curry and going to have a bath, eat chocolate in front of telly, half wishing I was dancing to Beyonce (but only half, because I’m like 26 now, getting old, staying in for NYE etc). #Iwokeuplikethis #flawless
I wanted to start blogging, like, actually properly. I often plan so that I blog for a specific reason and by the time I get round to it, I end up writing so much that I would be surprised if anyone bothered to read it! Blogging is meant to be short and frequent, right? Maybe it’s some subconscious fear about putting y writing out there, that part of me is scared that people will read it and so write so much to put them off!
Feminism in London was nearly two months ago. I could only attend on the Sunday, so the first talk I went to was by Max Dashu, who spoke about women’s suppressed histories. It was so eye-opening that I immediately noted down the website. I have also just signed up subscribed to the YouTube account. I’d highly recommend watching this extract from the Women’s Power DVD.
It is important when talking of empowerment from a position of historic oppression, that we don’t paint ourselves solely in a position of inferiority and victimhood. This connects very much to how power is perceived: in terms of ‘domination, force and supremacy… these systems are more than patriarchal; they are colonial and imperial’ Women’s oppression is one story, but, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie stated in the video below, it is vital that we hear all stories. Here we can consider a global perspective: one that doesn’t necessarily align with the story we get told.
The video states that ‘in classic Eurocentric history, women end up as footnotes to the main story’ and this is a view so widely accepted that when watching The Apprentice on catch-up, one team decided to cut off the woman’s long hair in a silhouette in order to make the image look like a man, which they described as “gender neutral”. No, my friend, man is not neutral, but is often deemed so because of the patriarchy’s position of this as the default. Whilst Feminism becomes more and more about challenging gender as a social construct, it is still important to raise the voices of those who have been silent too long.
My poem Sinking Ship is featured in a collection of poems for those seeking refuge, Over Land, Over Sea, where proceeds from sales of the book will be shared between the charities: Médecins Sans Frontières, Leicester City of Sanctuary and Nottingham Refugee Forum. It is available for purchase for £9.99 from Five Leaves Press and would make a lovely Christmas present for those who care about this issue. Charitable presents are something that has recently interested me, and I’d like to also recommend the Roy Castle Lung Foundation, which funds vital lung cancer research. I particularly like the statement necklaces and chunky earrings on offer here.
Contributors include: Alan Baker, Kathleen Bell, A.C. Clarke, Kerry Featherstone, Chrissie Gittins, Mark Goodwin, Tania Hershman, Siobhan Logan, Emma Lee, Carol Leeming, Joanne Limburg, Aoife Mannix, Roy Marshall, Hubert Moore, Thomas Orszag-Lund, Simon Perril, Sheenagh Pugh, Mahendra Solanki, Maria Taylor, Rory Waterman, Gregory Woods, and Siobhan Logan.
It is available to buy in the Five Leaves bookshop in Nottingham, by phone (0115 8373097) or by email (bookshop@fiveleaves.co.uk) with free p&p for UK orders.(Overseas orders welcome, please email for delivery estimate). All major Credit Cards & Paypal accepted.
Also, current Young Poet Laureate for London, Selina Nwulu touches on these themes in her poem Before. Watch here.
The BBC Edinburgh Fringe Slam is hosted by Sophia Walker. Judges will be Clive Birnie, Eleanor Livingstone, Matt Panesh and Fay Roberts. Check out the website for more details.
She Grrrowls is settled into its new home at Apples & Pears – it’s crazy to think that half a year has gone, and 16th July will be the last event before the summer break (all being well, returning in September). Check out what you missed last week:
In other news, I’m currently working on an anthology of ten poets from the She Grrrowls alumni after receiving funding from Ideas Tap to commission some new poems. I just need a publisher now! I’m hoping to get it out for December to have a launch event.
I’ve also been listening to this radio documentary, with poetry by Kate Tempest after having listened to lots of clips shared by Falling Tree. Again, you can listen to it here:
Speaking of radio, I’ll be having some poems featured on Audio Book Radio. Tune in on Friday 26th June at 2pm, 10pm and Saturday 27th at 6am.
My poem Sinking Ship is featured in a collection of poems for those seeking refuge, 
Poet on page and stage. Creator of She Grrrowls. Facilitator. Writer. 