Hi Wednesday, nearly over the hump!

Welcome to day three of our run of Zine 2 submission posts. We’ll be posting each submission, as it appears in our zine.

Day 3 of our submission post features poetry by Jackie Hagan. Thank you Jackie, absolutely love this. Check out her Jackie’s amazing work here. Just spotted that she’s got some good news too!!

JACKIE HAS BEEN ASKED BY THE BRITISH COUNCIL TO REPRESENT THE UK IN AN INTERNATIONAL SLAM AT FLUPP LITERARY FESTIVAL IN RIO DE JANEIRO IN NOVEMBER. SHE’LL ALSO BE STAYING AND WORKING IN THE FAVELAS. 

OH MY GOSH, congratulations to you Jackie!!!
Buy a copy of the zine here designingoutsuicide.bigcartel.com. See her poem below…

In here?
Everything’s broken:
the activity cupboard’s broken;
the kettle’s broken;
this felt tip’s fucked!
Just keep banging your head against the wall; we know that works.

Come on in and have a nervous breakdown; it’s something to do.
We wake up at 8, it’s like an Enid Blyton boarding school
but the girls have all grown up.
Every day at 9 and 12 and 5 for meals we have food, that taste like
food
and tomorrow for lunch it’s
… food
and we smoke our fingers to the bone
and laughter breaks in
two.

Come on in – you might as well, it’s like a holiday from life,
the view
from the dayroom:
men pacing and holding it in
until they don’t,
crazy women in crazy women coats,
force-fed hope and tired of trying,
we smoke.

The library
is a Take A Break with the teeth filled in;
that fence keeps the world out
and every day at 9 and 12 and 5 the kitchen battles with itself
and smoking is compulsory.

Come on in, you’re just in time –
Beryl’s kicking off and screaming all that stuff we all
already know
from the last time she kicked off,
with more arms, legs, tears, the nurse’s face and blood and later
she’ll come sedated into the dayroom,
tail-tucked and shamed that we all know
what we all know;
what we all know anyway.

Amy’s stealing everything
with nothing to put it in
and Paddy remembers back
when he used to have opinions and a coat.

Come on in,
it’s like Enid Blyton boarding school.
Instead of Matron
we’ve got Elaine the nurse who’s overworked and going grey too early from empathy and no time to care,
and Lucy, the young nurse, on who it’s just dawning that this system,
it doesn’t work.

 

But once a week we have ward rounds!
It’s all straighteners and bobbles and Beth
think’s she’s got a chance to go home,
and Erica’s dying to see her kids

and we wait.

and  we wait.

and 

we

wait.

Until!

The Lord Our Saviour!
(the psychiatrist)
is ready to look at us
in his peripheral vision
with his surprising lack
of interpersonal skills
(considering he’s chosen to work with
people
and
psyches.)

You see, most psychiatrists need to learn one sentence:
when someone tells you something horrific that’s happened to them
(which they will because you ask them again and again)
say this: “I’m really sorry that happened to you.”

‘Jackie Hagan is a cosmic scally who downs pints from her glittery false leg who believes in the power of theatre and comedy to make big changes in the world. She is currently touring award winning comedy-with-depth show ‘Some People Have Too Many Legs’ and working on a new piece ‘Jumble Souls’. She runs a not-for-profit organisation ‘Seymour Poets’ promoting the benefit of creative expression for marginalised people.

‘Jackie Hagan has been working with marginalised people for 10 years and has watched the effect of austerity, following the success of ‘Some People Have Too Many Legs’ (a solo show about jackie having her leg off and making it work to her advantage) she has been commissioned to make a project interviewing marginalised people about coping, mental health, services and hope. She will create a show using the audio of these real voices, puppetry, comedy, anger and light. She plans to break your heart to make it shine. She wants to know about your experiences, do get in touch, don’t worry about how you express yourself, jackie smells like a pastie and sometimes talks like one.’

Jaclynhagan@hotmail.com
http://www.jackiehagan.weebly.com