Writing Ourselves into the World

It has been a hot minute since we last posted on our blog, hasn't it? We will get right into it. In April, we hosted a cosy workshop in Worcester's Script Haven - a small, independent bookshop located just off the high street, run by Leena Bachelor - where we had the chance to explore a poet's identity and how we can write ourselves into the world. Identity is something we all wrestle with throughout our ever-changing lives, and when it comes to poetry, identity comes hand-in-hand with our voice; finding ourselves within our work is something crucial for a writer to elevate it, and we did just this during the two hour workshop. The participants created some beautiful, thought-provoking pieces that left us feeling like our voices had been rediscovered, heard, and entirely connected to one another's. The following poems have been shared with us by the poets who attended, and all copyright remains with the artists. Please enjoy.

Untitled - by Vic Harvey

I am more than my panic

I am more than my traumatic

Memories and stories and thoughts

I am more than my system

That is nervous and vicious

Body-brain ripped out and torn

I am more than my persona

I am more than my character

That I crafted since I was born

I am more than myself

Or what I think of myself

I am more

I am more

I am more.

Untitled - by Vic Harvey

No rollerskates, just rolling ankles

On cobbled streets, my feet can’t handle

Joints dislodge, they dislocate

It’s on brand, I can’t stand straight

My knees lock, arms extend

They go too far. They’re round the bend

So I bump and bash through my surroundings

I thump and crash through life’s astounding

Cesspool of silliness where I wiggle and wobble

It’s sometimes painful. But worth the trouble.

I’m dislocated in body and space

It’s sometimes hard to find my place

Fuck it. I’ll go at my own pace.

Life is a rough ride - by Robert Punton

I travel on wheels, in a world designed and ruled by feet plodders

This means when life is uphill,

I struggle to keep up with the strive and stride of life,

Life is far from a cozy, rosy, easy ride

When life takes a downwards curve,

I find myself heading, headlong into oncoming traffic,

Which is drastic and dramatic, for any spastic

My rubber burns fast leaving scorch marks on the tarmac

Leaving track marks upon my piss stained under crackers,

As my knackers rattle in fear, no wonder I am close to tears,

As I struggle not to shit myself as I hurtle at breakneck speed

Towards certain destruction on this hellish downhill trip

Protesters chase me down the street carrying placards

Proclaiming and pleading you should slow down brother

I would, if only I could sisterhood,

I try to cry through gritted, grinding teeth

This must look to onlooker like a vision

From a climate protestor’s nightmare

A lunatic failing to control a rubber burning vehicle

Flying freely towards them looking intent on bringing them down

Really, I am just an ordinary person, try my best to live my life,

Which is spinning out of control, through no fault of my own

Others are cocking up our lives

We must clean it up, or live with the shit

My role in life - by Robert Punton

My role in life is to roll through life, has been managed by others

To roll through life, like it is a rollercoaster

Up one moment down the next, up one moment down the next

Up one moment down the next, up one moment down the next

You do not mind being involved in the rollercoaster of life

When you are the car driver, it is a different story

When some mug is crazily driving the cart then at is not smart

Yes, life is a rollercoaster ride that is not reason to hide from life

Take a hold of anywhere you can find, never let go whatever happens

Close your eyes and kiss your butt just right

For however frightening the rollercoaster of life can be

It must be better than the grave alternative

They never saw us coming - by Robert Punton

They never saw us coming, had no clue about who we were

You see for centuries we were locked away

In big houses far from the madden crowd

Where none could see our pain; none could hear our cries;

A nations secret; a societal shame;

That everyone knew about, few dared speak about,

Believing if you never spoke of it,

They could pretend it never existed,

Then one day we were there amongst you

We were upon your streets, in your faces,

Shouting out here we come,

To join your party, to join in on the fun

We are the disabled ones,

Those you don’t think work properly,

Those in your view don’t look in smart

Those who may make the place look untidy

Well, we are here, we have always been here,

You have just tried to ignore us,

We refuse to be ignored anymore,

We are here, we are not going away

Make changes to your places and spaces

To include us

Make changes to your attitudes and behaviours

To include us

Instead of trying to remove the disabled

Help us remove those barriers that disable us

Then we will stop being a world of them and us

Become a world of all

This is me... - by Robert Punton

This is me disabled being

This is me brave and bombastic

This is me crazy

This me lazy

This me dizzy

This is me fizzy

This me is here

This is me nowhere

This is me invisible

This is me seen and heard

Am I any, am I all

Does it matter

Do I care

I care not

Someone Once Called Me Selfish - by L. E. Wynn

I was, I was, I was, I was -

a child.

Mother lathered the word

into my greasy, ratty hair

let my eyes sting

with the shame of it,

did not rinse out

all the bubbles.

We could still smell it on my skin

and I, afraid others could, too,

learnt to put the needs of others

before my own. I sacrificed

my mind,

my health

my sense

of self.

I found selfish

replaced by

doormat

and realised; I pleased

noone by masking

the ghost of a scent

that no one else sensed

but my mother.

What They Never Saw, I Now See - by L. E. Wynn

The puddled pillowcase,

tears cried after dusk

and dried before dawn.

The muddled wailing

laced with fears,

tied to a husk,

quartered and drawn.

The scores I kept tallied

in flesh, how doubt crept in

through an unlocked door.

I am more than the sum of my pain.

I am more than the weight of shame.

I am more than a life lived right.

I deserve to step into the light.

This is my story, I will shine bright.

This Is How I Move Through the World;

               Hips

             dia

    gon

            al

     to shoulders,

                              avoiding                             table corn

                                                                                                                                        ers,

wrists BANGING door handles,

ankles rolling, lightning  B O L T I N G  to my brain.

The world loads in

 like an old PS2 map;

l a m p

         o

         s

         t

         s

        y  c                                                                           

i                 l

           b    c           e     s                                    ,                                           

                                                                                                         P

                                                                                                       e  o

                                                                                                         p

                                                                                                      L    E

manifest before me in the time it takes

to blink

in the time it takes

to think

to move               -             delayed,

I trip on my own shoes.

Distracted by light, colour and sound,

Lost in the sky, the trees, or  the ground.

Sunlight dapples dopamine

When shone on a new green leaf,

or reveals a magpie’s wing         iridescent          if only brief.

I hold my eyes wide

to take it all in

I won't miss a second;

each one wasted

is a sin.

More Than the Chair - by DK

I am more than my wheelchair—

more than the stare, the pause, the there, there care.

More than the space I take, the place I park,

blue badge in the glass, catching light in the dark.

They never see the preparation—

the planning behind every destination.

Checking pavements, gradients, kerbs and gaps,

finding the places where access traps.

Before I even leave, I’ve already gone,

running routes in my head before moving on.

Will the door be wide? Will the lift still work?

Will independence arrive, or disappear with a jerk?

Driving—

I’m not just driving, I’m deciding all the time:

where people drift, where they step from the line.

Footpaths spilling into roads without warning,

eyes always working before every turning.

I clock everything—

every crossing, every crowd folding in.

Distance and movement, rhythm and speed,

hands on the wheel, mind taking the lead.

And when I stop,

it isn’t only stop—it becomes can I get out?

Is there room, or just the assumption of room?

A layout that welcomes, then quietly says not you.

Small things stack—

a gap, a glance, a pause that hangs back.

Not loud enough to shout, not sharp enough to scar,

just small reminders of where you are.

And care—

not the kind you caption, applaud or display,

but constant and quiet in everyday ways.

Twenty-four hours beneath every plan,

not spectacle, not struggle—just life as it stands.

This is my story—

not glory, not tragedy, not dressed to impress.

Just detail and routine, truth without excess.

I keep moving, through every barrier and stare.

I am more than the chair.

This Is How I Move - by DK

This is how I move through the world:

not meek, not moulded, not neatly contained —

I refuse the familiar arrangements,

the roles they repeat until choice sounds trained.

I resist the script in their voices,

the slipstream of “should,” the careful applause,

the polished corrections in patient tones —

be quieter, softer, grateful because.

But I was not built for their narrow designs,

their clean little boxes disguised as belief.

I catch in the gears of their ordered ideas,

arrive as disruption, depart as relief.

This is how I move: with a rhythm untaught,

a line that won’t bend to the limits they give.

They watch me and weigh me, reduce me to guesses,

then wonder why I refuse how they live.

I resist their gaze —

that habit of measuring people by comfort,

that urge to explain what they never could know,

to turn living things into labels and language,

then call them complete because now they can show

a version they understand.

No —

I am pulse before pattern,

a spark before symbol,

a current that runs where their maps lose the road.

I carry a weather that won’t stay predicted,

a force with no interest in lightening its load.

This is how I move through the world:

through the weight of their words,

their rehearsed little versions of worth.

I swerve them, unnerve them, disturb what they learned

about bodies and borders

and who gets to burn bright on this earth.

I refuse to be filed or folded,

refuse to be trimmed into something reduced.

No use in their use of me —

I choose to be more than what fear has produced.

So this is my motion, my measure of grace:

not pace for their race,not a face for their frame.

I make my own metre,

I name what I am,

like a storm that refused to be still

just to suit

you.