Poetspeak: a self-reflection
by SALLY RICHARDS
| Poem: | Invisible | |
| Published in: | Poetry Express 22 (Survivors' Poetry, 2005) |
Looking out through heavy leaden lids,
everything grey
caught in a black bin-bag of transparency.
This first stanza describes how I felt on a particularly bad day in 2004. My life was at yet another turning point, and the accumulated stress produced a reoccurrence of depression. I recognised the feelings only too well – I had experienced them before. In 1999, I fell very ill. I kept working until my health became so bad that I was sent for a series of tests, which lasted over a period of 6 months. In 2000, I was diagnosed with post viral fatigue, followed by a diagnosis of M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis) and an associated depression.
I was, at the time, living in temporary rented accommodation but surrounded by glorious countryside, yet …on that day, as on many others before it, everything had lost its colour. A rose would normally fill me with joy; I felt nothing. Fragrance was lost to me, my senses were numb to beauty, awe and wonder had gone – my eyes were dulled to the sky.
The title Invisible is the crux of the poem. When depression strikes it creates a gamut of feelings and emotions, the worst of which, for me, is the feeling that depression is invisible to others, creating a real sense of isolation. Writing Invisible began my journey of exploration, to express through poetry, deep feelings of emotional pain
Isolation, my captive companion,
Lethargy and Apathy join us.
We watch as they move around us
talking soundless words
smiles never reaching through
the semi-permeable membrane –
In this second stanza I write about feeling alone with my pain. My only company: my captive ‘friends' – my realisation of them as my captors coming in stanza four. Nothing can penetrate the bin-bag, the blackness, which renders me invisible. To know that you are physically visible and at the same time feel so much unacknowledged pain; wanting someone to see you, feel your desperation … It becomes a ‘them and me' situation.
They don't see the bin-bag,
they can't feel my breath
reeking with depression's toxicity.Isolation stands in front of me,
Apathy's at my side, arm around my waist.
Lethargy sat grinning behind.
My familiar captors: Lethargy, Apathy and Isolation, refuse to let me leave; I desperately want to move, break free from their control – but feel paralysed. The condition itself creates withdrawal therefore the whole thing becomes a vicious cycle.
Desperation really kicks in, in the penultimate stanza…
Sometimes Lethargy leaves,
seeps through into the other place
I try to join, clawing and punching invisible walls,
screaming silently, crying desolately;
the walls of the black thing
holding me prisoner against my will.
The will to break out is overpowering and as the fatigue lifts, so the resolve strengthens, but the grip of depression is too tight; I can't break free .
The repetition of the first stanza as the end, underlines, re-affirms the frustration and powerlessness of my condition.
Looking out through heavy leaden lids,
everything grey
caught in a black bin-bag of transparency.
In the actual writing of it, as with many of my poems: It's as if the end is the beginning – a subliminal experience. I begin to write and often the poem takes on a ‘life of its own' and leads me wherever it needs to go. When I say needs , I suppose that I mean that my psyche is buzzing away and drives the inspiration – whether metaphorically or literally.
A few years ago I found that when deeply moved, depressed, angry – I experience a bubbling, stewing, indescribable intangible something happening. This can last for a few hours, a few days, sometimes possibly even weeks, until I just have to write. The words can flow, trickle or gush; each time is different in both the experiencing and the expression of it. This moment of realisation came after years of writing poetry, from very earliest school days, interspersed with periods of not writing. This process has more recently been encouraged by local poet Steve Mann, with his wonderful support and belief in the worth of my early work and of myself as a poet and writer.
Much of my work is fuelled and inspired by loss – even of myself – as seen in this poem. Indeed it is at the centre of me and of my work. I do like to write on diverse subject matter, in various styles, but inevitably my obsessions draw me back. One of my reoccurring themes is that of mortality; the fleeting transience of our time on earth fascinates me in a rather, at times, obsessive and distressing way...
Alan Morrison, poet, editor and my mentor on the Survivors' mentoring scheme 2006 / 2007, published Invisible in Poetry Express #22, along with another of mine titled On the Edge. A further three poems followed in the next issue. For this I will be eternally grateful, as I had (and still have) enormous respect for the work of Survivors' Poetry, both the contributors and the team: Simon Jenner, Alan and Roy Birch. Reading Poetry Express was like ‘coming home' – I could empathise with the words and with the poets, who came alive to me, in its pages. Although often bleak, I find this kind of writing, and also the reading of various work of this nature, to be therapeutic. Writing and reading it, gaining understanding and insight from it, helps to produce inner catharsis.
Since the beginning of 2004, which saw the start of a prolific writing phase for me, I have been lucky enough to have work published in various journals, anthologies, magazines and newspapers. I have been a guest poet on community radio Warminster, involved in poetry readings of my work at local charity events. Three of my poems have been shortlisted in national poetry competitions and published, as well as two short stories, one published the other due for publication later this year.
My first solo collection will be launched in London in late 2007. It will include Invisible.
Born in Hopesay, Shropshire – surrounded by inspirational countryside
– sent to boarding school a tender seven year old – under harsh regimes
– losing her father in her early twenties, her mother to cancer, and her closest
friend suddenly – are some of the experiences that inform her poetry.
Employment in banking gave way to: Early Years Education and Care,
a career that included the co-founding and leading of two community
nurseries. She recently qualified in counselling skills and Reiki.
Her other interests include psychology, philosophy
and Bardic Studies.
Sally lives in a village close to Shrewsbury.