Coming back from the Void: Mental Health and Poetry

Written by: The Mary Seacole House Poetry Group
Published by: The Windows Project

Reviewed by E. Hughes

Reading through Poems from the Heart of the House I was struck by how good a lot of the poetry was, and how I was often drawn into another individual's personal world and inner space. Understanding a poem and another person's mindset is another issue, but even at face value I enjoyed immensely the work in this book.

A couple of the poems stand out for me. The first is Forever trapped in silence by Glynn Davies:

I am on the outside again
Looking through the mirror.
No one hears me
except the people in the mirror.
Trapped in this
alternate universe.
I belong in the mirror
but how do I come through this glass?
It was easy when I was younger.
Why am I lost again?

Like many poems, it could have numerous meanings or a specific one to the poet in question. The second poem is No Parent Pete by Peter Jackson.

It's hard to self portrait,
to say who I am -
where do I fit in the universal plane?
Am I born of heroes, villains or stars?
And what supernovas and life on Mars?

I could be the centre of all that is known,
held in awe and respect by what we call the unknown.
I could be everything or nothing at all.
It's better not to know: I can be anything I want.
No one else knows, they can't say I'm wrong.
I could be born of the person
who wrote the best song.

I don't often read poetry by unknown authors, so it's a pleasant surprise to read a collection of poems that isn't pretentious and from people that might be standing at the bus stop or getting a cake from Sayers, like you and me. I think some of the poems in this book are superb.