One year book birthday for 'Please Hear What I'm Not Saying'!
This time last year 'Please Hear What I'm Not Saying', a poetry anthology raising funds the UK Charity, Mind, was published, featuring 116 poets across the globe.
The anthology does not shy away from the realities of mental health and is divided into sections, the poetry feeling more positive throughout the book, with a focus on therapy and healing towards the end of the work. Since the book was published we have raised just under £600 for charity – an impressive figure which I'm keen to build on!
To celebrate this book birthday, I am running a giveaway. Below are the fantastic entries I have received so far. If you want to enter your micro poem of 10 lines or under, you can send your entry to Isabellekenyon@hotmail.co.uk with your address and your social media handles. Address your subject line as 'Micro poem competition'. Competition closes on February 24 and the winner will be announced on February 25.
Cloudy Mind
By Robin McNamara
Twitter: @robbiemac
Broken windows,
The wind rattles the
Rusted frames.
Religion on the TV
On this dead Sunday.
Life is closed today,
Quietness at the table,
The wind of this barren,
Dulled day howl louder,
On this dead Sunday.
Threads
By Dale Parnell
Do you see the fine thread
By which I hang?
A filament burning white hot,
Ready to break
And cast me into the abyss.
Voice
By Fokkina McDonnell
I’m scared of the voice that tells me to let go of the wheel.
It’s an old man’s, harsh, gritty, cold, pushing me.
That time: Monday, sunny, A487, heading for Portmadog…
throat, sweaty fingers, heat
Black figures carry bags home. Whatever home might mean.
Silence, only sirens calling. The dog-end of the year.
Falling is kind of doing something.
You can fall sideways, head first, backwards.
I have worked all these years to stay upright.
Running like a rabbit on a metal track.
The Worry Tree
By Jon Wilkins
As a device in mental health circles some bright
spark has developed the smashing idea of the worry tree
where, if you are anxious about anything in particular you come
up with an action plan and when you have that plan in place you
say to your doubting self can I do anything about this worry?
And if you can that’s fine, but if you can’t the answer is so simple,
you throw the worry away. So along with being asked if you have
thought about harming yourself due to your illness, or even ending your
bleak filled life you now have to nurture the roots of the worry tree
before you throw your worry away and are so miraculously Cured.
messed up
By Laura McKee in praise of the blur the imperfect edge where your hand or the breeze dared to shake
Chimp
By Jeff Skinner
@JeffSquibby Twitter
I whisper for England
silence the crowd with my noise,
tamper with your playlist
on the bus. You can’t
shake me off, throw me up.
I’m in your face. In the tunnel
on your case. Nowhere’s safe.
Don’t ch-choke now.
Relay
By Louise Brown
Twitter @LouiseLawyer
That day was like a race of relay;
you the runner at the front;
sprinting to the finish line
like an Olympian;
the burning torch passed back to us.
Pain transferred;your story ended that day by suicide ; our new stories began.
Insulated
By Rachael Ikins
lithium-cocooned
still I weep “goodbye.”
still parting’s pain like
wet leaves you must
peel my fingers off your car one by one.
Invisible, my fingerprints swirl, curl
dust settles while your taillights wink.
From the outside (looking in)
By Juliette Sebock
Twitter @juliettesebock
I was having a bad day and
could hear the universe
collectively ask why,
and I didn't have an answer.
How can I explain that
a little bit of everything
seems to be wrong
when nothing really is?
From what they see,
I have no right to be sad.
Held Closed
By Maxine Rose Munro
Think of me as that kitchen drawer
jammed shut ever since you've known,
so long you've forgotten what's in there.
If you ever knew.
Superficially it's the same, but with added
hidden depths.
Forcing things to open won't work,
you know that. Use your hands with your heart
with your mind, take time to find what's held closed;
those things I keep inside.
Links to buy Please Hear What I'm Not Saying and support Mind:
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