(rehearsals at the Liverpool Empire Theatre 2006 production of The Vagina Monologues. I have since bought some new jeans.)
well, almost all about me. I grew up in Burnley, lived in Liverpool for ten years, and now I'm lucky enough to live by the canal in Todmorden with three cats and my beautiful little girl.
I come from a very large and varied family which includes the famous poet Master Joseph Sebastian Shaw whose work is published on my poetry page. My life find its way into all corners of my work ... and vice versa. If you've read any of my stuff or seen me perform, you'll know that several years ago, I spent plenty of time in various psychiatric units across Liverpool. The experiences that I had as a user of mental health services haven't just found their way into my poetry, but also into my day job - I work as a director of a self-harm training organisation called harm-ed. You can read (almost) all about us on www.harm-ed.co.uk Finding time to write whilst running a small business and raising a small daughter and dealing with other family and work responsibilities and trying to maintain the semblance of a personal and social life is about as easy and relaxing as it sounds.
And of course, being an over-committed mother of a three-year old, I no longer have the time to indulge regularly in my favourite past-time of rock-climbing. I used to be vaguely athletic but now get out of breath walking up the street. These days I spend what spare time I have watching Benidorm and Masterchef; reading the Guardian in the bath; and unpacking from our house move in June 2007.
My taste in literature is as mixed as my taste in music; I'm Kate Bush's biggest fan and very fond of Tori Amos too. I love folk music (I play the fiddle) - particularly Karine Polwart and a strange and genius little band called "Diego Brown and the Bad Fairy". I'm a big fan of Manu Chao and Chumbawamba and danced so hard when they played at Holmfirth folk festival that I was sick and wet myself, almost simultaneously.
My favourite books - "If no-one speaks of remarkable things" by Jon McGregor; "All the Pretty Horses" by Cormac McCarthy; "The Bee Season" by Myla Goldberg, "Cider with Rosie" by Laurie Lee, "Boy Meets Girl" by Ali Smith. I don't read nearly as much poetry as I ought, but when I'm invited to go on Desert Island Discs (about the same time as I turn down my MBE), I'm going to take "Staying Alive" with me instead of the Bible. Some of the happiest moments I've had recently have been spent sitting in the sun reading Vona Groarke and taking up smoking again - and reading and re-reading George Szirtes' wonderful poem "Song". It's an amazing antidote to the wholesale societal shift towards brutality brought about by the current government and you should read it - so I've copied it in below.
I'm a lazy vegan, an ex-catholic and an anarchist with conventional values. I like my shoulders and I'm not that keen on my hands, but they do the job they need to.
That's me! and here's George:
Song
by George Szirtes for Helen Suzman
Nothing happens until something does.
Everything remains just as it was
And all you hear is the distant buzz
Of nothing happening until something does
A lot of small hands in a monstrous hall
can make the air vibrate
and even shake the wall;
a voice can break a plate
or glass; and one pale feather tip
the balance on a sinking ship.
It’s the very same tune that has been sung
time and time again by those
whose heavy fate has hung
on the weight that they oppose,
the weight by which are crushed
the broken voices of the hushed.
But give certain people a place to stand
a lever, a fulcrum, a weight,
however small the hand,
the object however great,
it is possible to prove
that even Earth may be made to move.
Nothing happens until something does
and hands, however small,
fill the air so the buzz
of the broken fills the hall
as levers and fulcrums shift
and the heart like a weight begins to lift.
Nothing happens until something does
Everything remains just as it was
And you hear is the distant buzz
Of nothing happening. Then something does.