POEMS AND WRITING
Art by offenders, secure patients and detainees
curated by graduates of the Koestler Trust’s mentoring
programmes in collaboration with Southbank Centre
24 September — 30 November 2014
Southbank Centre, Spirit Level
1982
I slip through the cracks into my past.
The sun is brighter & warmer. Times are simple, no knots to untangle.
My friends and I charge battle lines. ‘Army’ is the best!
9am to 3pm has been liberated for us to fight our war.
School is a distant memory and future. These are diamond days.
Dad still dresses in a beard of softest wool.
Mum conjures up delights in a steaming cauldron. Always with beans.
Even Nick has been injected with Quick-Step.
I crawl through forests of grass, next to ladybird castles.
Watch marshmallow skies and wait to be telegraphed to come in for ‘tea’.
The step back is always like skiing in marmalade.
Everything is dimmer. The sun is wrapped in bandages.
Mum and Dad now live in my past. I see them only in faded pictures.
Nick has shrunk. Old age has dressed him in weights.
Oh, and the war was lost. Adulthood over-ran our position.
HM Prison Dumfries, Scotland
Platinum Award for Poem
2 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
A STRANGER ON THE SHORE
The waves rush upon the shore
Like a man greeting a long lost friend.
Then, discovering I’m a stranger,
They retreat in shame back to the sea.
I was born a million waves ago
In this sea-haunted town.
HM Prison Stafford, Staffordshire
Gold Award for Poem
2888
3 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Appeasement
In the first frozen minutes of the new year,
back when I was seven years old,
I remember warming my hands over a heap of holly and mistletoe,
fresh from the parlour,
hissing and crackling in the yard,
and watching the man who would one day become my father-in-law
hold a wriggling rabbit in one hand,
while the other slit its throat, letting blood drip
on moonlit ploughshares.
To make sure it’s a good ’un
was all he’d say. And his wheezy laugh
billowed out like smoke
to catch the stars.
HM Prison Brixton, London
Georg Galberg Platinum Award for Poem
May Turnbull Scholarship Award 2013
1998
4 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Apple
Mock orange; mock red – the mock-turtle.
Seeing that you are given over to language
Of another sort; let what comes naturally
Be neither a help nor a hindrance; let the one
Fruit drop.
Let the one fruit drop, for that is all you have.
In a biblical sense;
Man, woman, naked, together.
The turtle didn’t mock, your raw mouth mocked
What the fruit was. Was tasted.
And being elated of what the one fruit was, let the one
Fruit drop.
Thornford Park Hospital, Berkshire
(secure mental health unit)
Platinum Award for Poem
9124
5 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
B.a.m.b.o.o
It is said that everybody comes to a point in their life where one second,
one step, one decision will shape how the rest of their life will pan out.
As true as that sounds, there’s more than one point and it’s NEVER too
late to change your future, only your past.
I am not going to blame anything or anybody besides myself for the
situation I find myself in, all I would like is to be seen as a human being
that has made the wrong choices at different crossroads in his life.
My earliest memory is of my dad taking me to nursery. I can
remember that as clear as if it was just seconds ago when it actually
was over twenty three years ago.
My mum would wake me up with a bath run and my breakfast
waiting on the table and my clothes ironed waiting for me, me standing
there while my mum dressed me up like I was her fully-grown rag doll.
Soon after that my dad would be shouting for me to hurry up and get
my coat on. Now, my dad is 6’3 and sixteen, maybe seventeen, stone,
an absolute giant of a man with a deep voice that had the bass in it that
would stop me in my tracks to check I wasn’t doing anything wrong that
I would get into trouble for. With hands like shovels you DID not want
this man to slap you.
He was my role model, I loved everything about my dad from his
dress-sense to his car, which was a blue Saab convertible, which being
in it felt like you were in a ride at the fun fair. He had a routine where as
soon as I got my seat belt on I would be given a chewing gum under the
condition that I told him when the gum had run out of flavor so I could
spit it into his hand to be thrown away.
My next notable memory is of being woken up by shouting and
swearing. I tried to go back to sleep but the bass in my dad’s voice was
coming through my floor like there was a speaker being held up to the
ceiling. I started wishing it was as a bad dream but it was about to get
very real.
All of a sudden the shouting started to make its way upstairs like
a tornado, the sound of my dad’s voice getting closer, like he was in my
bedroom, right next to me, getting closer to my ear. Then, it stopped and
before I could think finally it’s finished I heard my mum’s voice like I’ve
never heard it before. And I thought I knew all of my mum’s voices, from
happy to sad and excited. But this was none of the above, that was such
that it made me scared and that split second I knew this was a serious
argument.
“I’m sorry” is what I heard my mum say. Then instantly I heard
a thud, deep breathing, then that was followed by some more thuds.
The only other way I could explain the thud sound is like two pieces
of meat being slapped together then all of a sudden I heard my sister
6 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
scream out “stop”, “stop it dad”, “please dad, she’s sorry”. I jumped out of
bed thinking this can’t be happening. Me and my family are a close-knit
family, we stick together, we don’t hit each other.
I opened my door thinking I was a grown man about twenty-nine
years old, ready to stop my dad from hurting my mum but what I was
about to see has never left my mind till this day. My big old giant of
a dad bending over my mum - who’s 5’5 and weighs about eight stone
– hold her by her hair with one hand and punching her with the other
hand flush in the face. I swear I froze and was back to being the ten
year old I was and, believe me, time stood still and the shock had me
rooted to the spot like I was an oak tree. I had to watch the man I loved
so much beat the woman I loved so much to a pulp. There was bloody
everywhere, I could see my mum’s mouth full of blood. Then I thought
what could have my mum done that’s so bad that my dad would do
this. That was quickly followed by a loyalty thought of whose side am
I on? My mum I thought, even though we all treated her like our very
own personal slave, she was the one who showed me the most love and
I repaid it by idolizing my dad. But why wouldn’t I, we share the same
name and people always said I looked exactly like him, so to me he was
the coolest man alive up till that day. In one second that all went out of
the window what I felt, from love to hate, never to return.
The second I could move I ran to the telephone thinking I would
call the police as they had not that long ago been to my school telling
my class that they would help us in an emergency, “just call 999” the
policeman said. So, I picked up the phone, dialed 999 then hung up as
I had a weird sense of loyalty towards my dad. I was torn between both
of my parent, but before I could dial it again my dad had left
the house.
I remember looking at my mum feeling ashamed that I could not help
her and that’s the end of that memory.
The rest of my childhood was quite mundane. My mum left my dad,
not forgetting all of her kids and moved to Kent. My dad opened up his
own garage and spent most of the day fixing cars, leaving us to bring up
ourselves, a dream for most kids to be left to get on with it having takeaways everyday and a curfew of just get home before day, who didn’t
get home till after half ten because the pub was more important than
his kids.
HM Prison Full Sutton, North Yorkshire
First-time Entrant Award for Life Story
1760
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Excerpt from
Be England What She Will…
English my mother tongue
But not my mother’s
As is the mother, so is her daughter…
England the mother country
the virgin land
not my mother’s and
no longer…
From the collection Have You Seen This Woman?
HM Prison Swaleside (Sheppey Cluster), Kent
Silver Award for Poetry Collection
0606
Comment from the artist
‘I wrote a play called ‘Phallusy’, with a main
character that was of a different gender,
race and age to me. I named her Tedrah
and she wanted to be a poet.’
8 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Clouded Emotions
The truth is an ancient city buried in time,
clouded by emotions,
chemical reactions,
neural synapses
firing constant distractions.
The truth is like Wi-Fi all around
but you have to connect.
Looking for the truth in your brain,
is like breaking open a radio
and looking inside for the musician.
The truth channels through you,
but it isn’t
You.
From the anthology Real Man Talk
Second Shot Group of 13
HM Prison & Young Offender Institution Doncaster,
South Yorkshire
Silver Award for Anthology
2222
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Nancy’s Boy
I stand here before you, shackled and chained
With a yearning inside telling me to explain
I was born in shadow and succoured with pain
Just a part of a cycle being repeated again
I’m the son of a man with many a face
Of a mother and wife always kept in her place
They sowed the seeds, but who am I to lay blame
Where’s that child in this guilty man I became
(chorus)
Was it nature or nurture that made me this man
Not a text book that raised me, only fallible hands
But whatever flawed tools she chose to employ
All I was and will ever be in Nancy’s boy
I know mommy loved me, so I don’t understand why
When daddy changed faces, she’d always stand by
And when innocent games showed a sinister side
She didn’t protect me, she just turned, her blind eye
But how could I hate, when all my sins she forgave
Her hand on my cheek while I hung my head in shame
My demons and darkness never showed on her face
And she was there from my first, to the last of her days
(chorus)
Was it nature or nurture, what is it makes me this man
No text book that raised me, just her fallible hands
And no matter what tools she failed to employ
All I was and ever will be is Nancy’s boy
They made me, destroyed me, and now they’re all gone
So I sit here alone, wondering where I belong
Can’t harm me no more, but it hurts too much to enjoy
‘Cause all I was, all I’ll ever be is Nancy’s boy
All I am, all I know how to be is Nancy’s boy
Matt
HM Prison Erlestoke, Wiltshire
Platinum Award for Songwriting
0887
10 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
She Felt Gloves
Hello how are you,
Fine thank you.
She felt gloves
Still in his early 20’s
Children’s dreams
As soon as a bird flew up.
She felt gloves
As a doctor, touch her gently.
Wombling, Wombling
Moving, Moving
Beginning to despair
In the strange sensation
The bird flew up again
He stroked her gently
To ease the pain.
Wombling, Wombling
Moving, Moving
She felt gloves
The bird pushed hard
Leaving warmth and comfort
So bright in his eyes.
He cried life!
She felt gloves
She felt him
On her heart! In her heart!
Atkinson Secure Unit, Devon (under 18s)
Peter Selby Under 18s Special Award for Poem
2843
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Stones for the Dead
Give stones for the dead my friend,
carbohydrates to the living.
Tick tock ticking gently dogged
across the line dividing.
So jog to run the devil to ground
or the stone will be yours my friend.
Jog on, jog off, jog around and around
until the spirals end.
By maggot and mud or flame and smoke
disassembled we must be.
No sweat and blood nor prayer nor hope
can change our fate, you’ll
see.
Stones for the dead my darling
Carbohydrates while we’re living.
A thin slice of eternity
is all that we are given.
HM Prison Bure, Norfolk
Silver Award for Poem
0278
12 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Supernature
Even if I couldn’t clarify,
the leak out of the cloud to my home.
I’d miss the things that grow round broken bones.
Find the place where time is dispensable.
The mind of the dark,
the hypernova,
sitting there and watching worlds collide in the background.
You just scoop up a skullful of supernature.
Leave me in the ground in December.
Split me apart, feed me to the womb of a nebula.
The animals and I size thee ice eyes of the mortal murk.
I’d miss the things that follow pre-determined curves.
A tumbling force,
a supernova,
a neuronic trust in the ocular curse.
Waiting for the brooding hypernature.
The myriad vascular deltas, consuming the human man.
A ribcage locked with wishbone key.
The faint blood beat of pressure lungs, ears and drums.
In watchmaker we trust.
Violent death brings violent birth brings violet rays and gold.
Rings cold, rings true, veins blue with reflected death.
In watchmaker we trust.
HM Prison & Young Offender Institution Moorland, South Yorkshire
Restorative Justice Highly Commended Award for Songwriting
9257
13 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
That Something
Someone has stolen something
Warm from me,
So now I am cold.
Something that fills me with
Happiness, has now been stolen,
Now I am empty.
If I had everything in the world
I would give it away,
Just to be,
warm and full
Just that one thing can
change everything…
The way you think and
The way I act.
Do you know what I am missing?
Atkinson Secure Unit, Devon (under 18s)
Lady Bishopston Under 18s Special Award for Poem
2850
14 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
The Lake
And the jumble and the fragments and the
bits and pieces fall loosely as if shaken
from old branches long undisturbed.
They scatter form the head onto the page
in no order and no shape save that the
dreaming, questing mind invents – I said before,
words seem to coalesce around ideas,
like tea leaves that you peer into and scry,
and seek to find the wisdom of your thoughts,
the underlying truth that corrugates
the surfaces of mind –
– a great fat trout
with silver scales smiles, glimmering, and swims
hazy through the black and inky water.
One could think it was a swan. One could think
it was a moon. One could think anything,
anything at all. Do you dream your way,
haplessly from day to day
through the pages of your life?
(I only ask from curiosity –
it’s just the way things seem to be,
at least, for me.)
We sit along the shore of that great lake,
Throwing stones to test our limits and its depth.
The birds-nest jumbles and eggshell fragments,
The foam-speckled flotsam and the driftwood pieces
Come washing to our pebble-tired feet.
And in the morning all that will be heard
Is the sound of crows and gulls; the sounds of birds
Edinburgh Criminal Justice Social Work, Scotland
Paul Zimmermann JP Highly Commended Award for Poem
1618
15 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
The Picture Man
I knew a man
who was a picture of himself.
A walking, talking
laughing, crying
memorial to his passions.
The past
and the passed away.
Here be monsters,
for your geography of flesh.
And the backstreet cartographers sing:
With our needles full of colour
we will sew you a new, new skin.
A menagerie of demons,
devils and skulls.
No room left for himself,
no room left for his good, kind, self.
Ink skin, canvas incarnate,
camouflage for a gentle soul.
HM Prison Bure, Norfolk
Gold Award for Poem
0281
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The Silver Locket
I found a silver locket on the post box:
The postman must have saved it from the post.
The young girl must have posted it in anger;
The postman must have save it from the post.
I found a silver locket on the post box:
The lover must have given it with longing,
The young girl must have posted it in anger;
The postman must have saved it from the post.
The mother must have passed it down with pride.
The lover must have given it with longing,
The young girl must have posted it in anger;
The postman must have saved it from the post.
I found a silver locket on the post box:
The husband must have chosen it with care.
The mother must have passed it down with pride.
The lover must have given it with longing,
The young girl must have posted it in anger;
The postman must have saved it from the post.
The jeweler must have crafted it with genius.
The husband must have chosen it with care.
The mother must have passed it down with pride.
The lover must have given it with longing,
The young girl must have posted it in anger;
The postman must have saved it from the post.
I found a silver locket on the post box:
I picked it up. The chain was broken.
HM Prison Brixton, London
Gold Award for Poem
9457
17 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Thinking About Life
If you can’t see it move
Doesn’t mean it didn’t move.
Don’t forget we are on the earth,
And it moves around the sun
Every second;
We also move with it.
This second where we are
Will be very different to
The second after,
So think again.
From the anthology Here to Me
Mass Observation Archive Group of 6
HM Prison Lewes, East Sussex
First-time Entrant Award for Anthology
0014
18 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
We used to laugh, girl, didn’t we?
We used to laugh, girl, didn’t we?
It wasn’t all bad,
back then,
giving it hell –
the mad days
and the drunk nights.
my god,
how much
money
we spent on booze
(still do) –
despite remaining
increasingly
sober.
Edinburgh Criminal Justice Social Work, Scotland
Platinum Award for Poem
1408
19 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
BEST FORGOTTEN
Here to me is this moment in time
As I refuse to accept the walls around me,
This place of noise and aggression and frustration
And, yes, it must be said inhumanity.
So I am here; it’s a blink of my eye,
One more notch of my personal experience,
But here to be forgotten,
To be ticked off as part of another day,
Nearer to my return to normality,
When there will be many ‘heres’
Some to be remembered,
Some best forgotten.
From the anthology Here to Me
Mass Observation Archive Group of 6
HM Prison Lewes, East Sussex
First-time Entrant Award for Anthology
0014
20 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
BURN SO BRIGHTLY
You can’t keep me hidden, ’cause I will shine and be seen
You can’t keep me from growing, ’cause I will become bigger each day
I will burn so brightly, that you won’t be able to hide me
I will burn so brightly, that you will have to release me
You can’t hold me back, ’cause I am strong to take the pain
You can’t hold me down, ’cause I will up and fly away
Give me strength to carry on
Give me reason to belong
Give me the spirit to succeed
And I will burn, I will burn
I will burn so brightly, that you won’t be able to hide me
I will burn so brightly, that you will have to release me
You can’t stop me succeeding, ’cause I will stop for no one
You can’t bury my goals, ’cause I will unearth my soul
Give me strength to carry on, give me reason to belong
And I will burn so brightly
Give me the spirit to succeed, and you will have to release me
I will burn, I will burn so brightly
I will burn so brightly, that you won’t be able to hide me
I will burn so brightly, that you will have to release me
HM Prison Wolds, East Yorkshire
Songwriting
0055
21 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
DEAR NASA
I would like to apply for your
Job as an astronaut as I feel I have what it takes.
I’ve seen the film Armageddon and Bruce Willis is the hero, my mum used
to call me
her little hero so I’m as good as him.
I’ve seen all the Star Wars films and all the Star Treks I feel I know my way
round the Starship Enterprise through watching them.
I think there was an Astronaut called Buzz Aldrin and my last name’s
nearly the same. I could change my first name if needs be.
One of my favourite songs is Space Cowboy by Jamiroquai I’ve listened to
it hundreds of times. I also listen to a song by the Prodigy called Out of
Space some of it goes like “I’m gonna send him to outer space to find
another race.”
So as you can see I’ve had lots of space related experience and I will await
your reply.
From the anthology My Dreams
HM Young Offender Institution Aylesbury,
Buckinghamshire
Theme: Dreams
0749
22 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
FOLLOW
Trapped in a windowless cage,
aching inside;
a pulse in the darkness,
trembling with a mere glimpse,
a rush; a flush of the cheeks,
find your rhythm in the beat,
sweaty palms reveal truth,
thoughts betray and try to persuade,
don’t listen,
don’t listen,
don’t listen:
just act.
From the collection Illusions of the Heart
HM Prison Shotts, Scotland
Bronze Award for Poetry Collection
0481
23 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
GET OUT OF JAIL FREE
I have been as much a prisoner on the road
As I have been inside
Ironically
I have found freedom in prison
From the collection Urbane Psalms
HM Prison Thameside, London
Gold Award for Poetry Collection
2216
24 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Haiku Poem Number 2
I’ve many things to tell.
Right now get breathless, although to be.
In the dark, always reading.
HM Prison Huntercombe, Oxfordshire
Jonathan Aitken Highly Commended
Award for Poem
0199
25 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Haiku Poem Number 10
The Governor, large and imposing,
Controlling the many faces, sad and forlorn,
Like a shepherd for trouble.
HM Prison Huntercombe, Oxfordshire
Chamberlain Commended Award for Poem
0172
26 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Half-Light Crow
The sun shines like a sulphur pit;
shines on the yin-yang bird
fell demon – angel ascendant,
like the grieving felon who must murder the past
if he is to be absolved.
Transfixed, I might be a scarecrow
in my suit of sticks
and she a dawn visitor
perched, now on my shoulder, now on my head,
driving her frail spikes into my fat,
her parcel of warmth and down warps my cheek – most unkind.
Her eyes shine, like my cold brains blood, undiminished;
her wings stretch spanning Calvary
like my imprisoned imagining,
and, yes, the Magpie’s tail is a paintbrush
dripping blue;
my tale, too, ends in melancholy.
From the collection The Bereavement of Crows
Littlemore Hospital, Oxfordshire (secure mental health unit)
Platinum Award for Poetry Collection
0291
27 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Inside
Have you ever been inside?
Inside proper?
It’s like being inside your
own body and you can’t get out.
You know where everything
is,
but you just can’t
get
to it.
From the collection The Warmth of Paint
HM Prison Everthorpe, East Yorkshire
Rose Simpson Bronze Award
for Poetry Collection
1882
28 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Inside Out
I look out the window and watch my life go
Further down the tube and into the underground.
My grey eyes spy the soulless, twinkling sky.
Shadows and silhouettes haunt the locked cell.
The sad calculation is a decade out of circulation.
Too many nights alone with a fool for company.
Intimacy and compassion are not mine to fashion.
The outside was my prison, the inside offers freedom.
HM Prison Full Sutton, North Yorkshire
Silver Award for Poem
1754
29 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
My Cell Door
Dark green and dented with light.
Paint chips like blood spots.
Buckled and rippled like rancid canal water.
Window blocked and waiting.
From the collection Storm in a Teashop
HM Prison Stafford, Staffordshire
Gold Award for Poetry Collection
2887
30 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Redemption
Grey walls
Reflect winter sun
Into my cell
I find freedom
From the collection Urbane Psalms
HM Prison Thameside, London
Gold Award for Poetry Collection
2216
31 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
Street Predators
Tomorrow I am homeless
Prey to the street – predators
I see their lights
Flashing through the trees
I hear their mating – call
Whoop! Whoop!
HM Prison & young Offender Institution Bronzefield, Surrey (women)
Highly Commended Award for Poetry
Collection
0467
32 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
TEARS OF THE BIG MAN
The tears of the big man in the bunk above me
As he cries in his sleep
Tells me more of his biography
Than the harsh words in angry slang
He throws around the prison wing
During the waking hours of the day
From the collection Urbane Psalms
HM Prison Thameside, London
Gold Award for Poetry Collection
2216
33 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
The Light
This candle that is
all and so bright,
flaming its softness
far and far out in the
resounding, savage night
that is now my given home.
It stands steady, all and so radiant,
it is of tenderness and glory
of strength beyond steel.
It is a waymarking, a line
of passage laid out; it is
of such burning
stillness and intent,
such clearness, pointing me
gateways into clouded dreams
where all is and may be
beyond knowing, beyond hoping.
You draw me on:
you will not let me otherwise.
The flame is and is only:
it is there, dazzling in your deep of eye –
it is Peace.
From the collection Battleminds: A Collection of Poems
HM Prison Castle Huntly, Scotland
Penguin Random House Bronze Award for Poetry
0867
34 CATCHING DREAMS, POEMS AND WRITING
CATCHING DREAMS
is the UK’s annual national showcase of arts by prisoners, offenders on
community sentences, secure psychiatric patients and immigration detainees. It is the seventh exhibition in an ongoing partnership between the Koestler Trust and Southbank Centre.
This year’s show is curated by ex-offenders who have completed a year’s
programme of mentoring with the Koestler Trust’s specially trained and supported artist mentors. Each curator selected work from the 8,789 entries to
the 2014 Koestler Awards. Many of these curators have had their own visual
art or writing exhibited in previous Koestler Trust exhibitions − and so know
from personal experience the impact being exhibited has on participants’
motivation, relationships and confidence. The evaluation of the Koestler
Trust’s Scholarships Mentoring Programme by criminologist Dr Leonidas
Cheliotis is launched at Southbank Centre on the evening of Monday 3 November.
The exhibition also includes an installation by visual artist Janetka Platun
showcasing poetry and prose submitted to the Awards. The commission
was made possible by the Koestler Trust’s Literature Development Project,
supported by Arts Council England.
Working alongside Southbank Centre exhibition hosts, to welcome visitors
and invigilate the exhibition, are ex-offenders, specially recruited, trained and
employed by the Koestler Trust. As well as gaining unique work experience
and new skills, the hosts deepen visitors’ engagement with the exhibition,
enabling everyone to hear first-hand how the arts reflect and enrich the lives
of people in secure and criminal justice settings.
24 September – 30 November 2014
Southbank Centre, Spirit Level
A partnership of