POETRY GROUP MAY 20TH 2020 BLOG

POETRY GROUP NEWSLETTER

MAY 20TH 2020

TOPICS FROM MAY 12^th GROUP

LEMN SISSAY

I know a bit about Lemn Sissay wearing two hats . 

My I like reading and poetry hat -in fact I finished his memoir My Name is Why just before lockdown. Below is a link to The Guardian’s review of the book, which also talks about his childhood experiences. 
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/29/my-name-is-why-lemn-sissay-review

And my work to support children and young people who have been hurt and abused. 

I worked at one time for Barnardo’s. As a charity they were not compelled to give access to their files when the law granted service users that right. However, they decided to do so believing it to be best policy-  a decision I wholeheartedly agree with. 

Not only do they hold an enormous archive on every single child taken in by the organisation dating back to the 19th century, but they had played a significant part in the Child Migration scheme in which 130,000 children were sent to a “better life” in former colonies, mainly Australia and Canada , from the 1920s until 1967. Children were often told their siblings and parents were dead, and parents had no opportunity or power to challenge the decision to send them so far away. Some children thrived and prospered, but many children were treated as  slaves and endured appalling abuses.

When they began sharing files, as well as opening offices in Canada and Australia they were working with elders, prioritising people on the grounds of age (I think the oldest person was 102) and on the grounds of abuse. The second category was very hard for the organisation (but not as hard as it was for the victims and survivors I hear you cry). It was very challenging for the charity to accept the abusive experiences of children and young people, and the openness and honesty required to do the work made the organisations’ lawyers shudder fearing a class action that could destroy the charity.

A man in his thirties who grew up in Barnardo’s care called Philip Frampton wrote a memoir called The Golly in the Cupboard which exposed and challenged the organisation. Like Lemn Sissay, he was a black child, and had to fight with great tenacity to have his abuse recognised. Awful as his experience of direct abuse had been, one of the things I found most appalling was that someone had written in his file when he was three years old- yes, three years old-  “This child will never amount to anything”. I never think of children who have endured and had to learn from and somehow cope with what Phillip Frampton and Lemn Sissay experienced as damaged- partly because it resonates with the phrase “damaged goods”. I prefer to think of them as hurt and that only inanimate things are damaged.

On a happier note, Lemn Sissay was a guest on Desert Island Discs in October 2015 and this link should take you to the recording and various pod casts.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06gthsz

Finally, Lemn Sissay is involved with the Foundling Museum (he and Handel which is an incongruous but happy pairing) and below is a link to an exhibition he created in 2014- a poem called Superman was a Foundling.

He wrote of the work

“Superman was a Foundling upraises the fictional stars of popular and classic culture who are fostered, adopted or orphaned. They range from Romulus and Remus of Rome’s foundation myth, to Lisbeth Salander of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Their adventures have enriched our lives, but we do not recognise the connection between the fictional characters and the fostered, adopted and orphaned children in our midst.

Did Superman have ADHD? Did Harry Potter have an uncontrollable temper? Was Lisbeth Salander unable to form lasting relationships? For all their complexity and pain, these characters are shining examples of how to be your best. Young people in care enrich our lives in a similar way.”

https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/events/superman-was-a-foundling/

If you scroll down the list of the children and young people in history and fiction  who were fostered, adopted or orphaned there is a time lapse video which shows the high speed creation of the installation.

The Lampades were the Companions of Hecate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft and crossroads.  They were a gift from Zeus to reward her loyalty and support in his struggle against the Titans. They carry torches and accompany Hecate on her night-time travels and hauntings. There are stories that their torches drove men to madness.

The best short but comprehensive with some interesting photographs article I can find on the Match Girls Strike is linked below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/england/london/article_2.shtml

Somewhere in the enormous bookcase with cat I call home is a wonderful book called Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America by Peter Washington which sadly I have been unable to discover but highly recommend if anyone would like to learn more about Annie Besant, Krishnamurti and Steiner (please remember I am a sceptic and here she is writing about curing illness “Turning now to medicine we find the Italian Count Mattei promulgating a system of cure by the homeopathic use of subtle vegetable essences which may well give pause to those who would make universal the curing by faith or mind alone. Some of his liquids will instantly stop a violent pain, restore sight, give back hearing, and dissipate abnormal growths. His globules will make a drunken man sober, and, given to the nurse who suckles a babe, will cure the child who takes the milk.” so it is difficult for me to take Theosophy seriously).

Extra Poem

As a kind of homage to the Match Girls I have chosen a poem or song by Mary Brooksbank

Oh Dear Me: The Jute Mill Song

Oh dear me the mills gaein fast,
And the pair wee shifters canna get nae rest;
Shiftin bobbins, coorse and fine,
They fairly mak ye wark for your ten and nine.

Oh dear me I wish the day wis done,
Rinnin up an doun the pass is nae fun;
Shiftin, piecin, spinnin – warp, weft and twine,
Tae feed an claith ma bairnies affen ten and nine.

Chorus:
Oh dear me the mills gaein fast,
And the pair wee shifters canna get nae rest;
Shiftin bobbins coorse and fine,
They fairly mak ye wark for your ten and nine.

O dear me, the warld’s ill divided,
Them that works the hardest are the least provided;
But I maun bide contented, dark days or fine,
There’s no much pleisure livin affen ten and nine.

Chorus:
Oh dear me the mills gaein fast,
And the pair wee shifters canna get nae rest;
Shiftin bobbins coorse and fine,
They fairly mak ye wark for your ten and nine.

Mary Brooksbank (15 December 1897 – 16 March 1978) was born in an Aberdeen slum, and came to Dundee when she was eight or nine years old. She began working illegally in Dundee's jute mills as a bobbin shifter when she was eleven old and had her first experience of trade unionism at the age of 14, when the girls at her jute mill successfully marched for a 15% pay rise.

Throughout her long life she was an active campaigner in the labour movement. She sang, played the violin and wrote songs. When money was short, she would take the ferry from Dundee to Tayport and  busk  in the street.

Most of her songs were about the life of the working-class women who worked in the jute mills of Dundee. She called these songs "Mill Songs". They are full of detail and sympathy for the struggle in which these hard-working, poorly paid women were engaged just to feed and take care of their families. 

She was an activist all her life- arrested on the first Armistice Day celebrations in 1918 for protesting at the shoddy treatment of returning veterans, and, at the age of 73  visiting Hanoi in 1970 in order to tend the wounded and to help rebuild a city being bombed by B52 bombers.

FINALLY

Mary has chosen the poem for May 20^th. Rosemary and Sue are choosing the two after that.

Best Wishes,

Elizabeth