Soteria in the Pub
Join us for Soteria in the Pub, our open mic event to raise awareness for compassionate alternatives in mental health, at The Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon (London EC1R 3BL).
Join us for Soteria in the Pub, our open mic event to raise awareness for compassionate alternatives in mental health, at The Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon (London EC1R 3BL).
Asylum's poetry editor Janine Booth introduces three of the poetic contributors to the new issue of the radical mental health magazine: Gail Something Else, Fred the Ninja, and Holly Bars.
Rebecca is a school refuser
The lessons confuse her
Miss knows her sister
is a substance misuser
It doesn't excuse her
She's labelled a shirker,
assigned to an overworked social work
a conflict defuser
But Becky's still a school refuser
Mason is a lesson bailer,
afraid of failure
He's looking paler, feeling frailer
Asylum wants your poetry for our radical mental health magazine.
Janine's contribution to A Disorder for Everyone's online poetry gig challenging the mainstream narrative on mental health, held on 16 April 2021, featuring the poems Locked Up and Down and Not OK.
Thinking about practical humanistic models for supporting autistic people in distress, time for a paradigm shift?
What if I can't stand the train
without the carriage to myself?
What if I can't stretch and strain
to reach up to the luggage shelf?
What if all the outside seats
are taken and the queue's too long?
And I don't recognise the streets
and can't see left or right or wrong?
Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Home Office on Friday 4 September to demand that Osime Brown not be deported to Jamaica.
Last year, I wrote a poem (a pantoum) called 'This Place' about visiting my son in the adolescent psychiatric unit where he spent four months (read it here).
He now has his own flat, living independently with support. So I decided to write a follow-up poem of the same length in the same style, hoping that this will illustrate the wonderful progression.