Protected: Transcript: An interview with Debbie McNamara for You Are Here

Jet Moon

Afternoon Debbie! So I’m talking with Debbie McNamara of Survivors’ Poetry. It’s Tuesday, the 19th of March. And um Debbie, our interview today is a little bit different from other interviews I’ve done with survivor writers as you’re the host, and coordinator of Survivors’ Poetry, and that’s described as a survivor arts organisation who promote the poetry of survivors of mental distress.

Debbie Mcnamara

I’m technically the coordinator of live events, rather than the coordinator of Survivors’ Poetry, but…

Jet Moon

Do you want to say something in your own words about what Survivors’ Poetry is?

Debbie Mcnamara

I think different things to different people. People who have been connected to it since it coalesced in 1991 have come into contact with other survivors who have formed like the bedrock of their whole lives into terms of relationships. Can I…I can mention certain names?

Jet Moon

Absolutely.

Debbie Mcnamara

So for example, Frank Bangay, who has passed away now was one of the founding members and would say that, you know, for him Survivor’s Poetry is a family. And so many people are drawn to Survivor’s Poetry, even though we have this kind of stigmatising diagnosis and quite often family members don’t get on too well with that. People don’t feel seen as individuals and able, you know, to be as open as they would like with all of those experiences in a lot of cases and at Survivor’s there’s this kind of freedom, where, you know, we celebrate these experiences, we de-stigmatise, you know, there’s no taboo about any of it and the relationships and the connections that are forged, I think are very meaningful and enduring. So it’s not just a place where we bring our poetry and our music but there’s this whole identity thing going on, like the ‘survivor’ term is a self-identification.

Because, you know…( in mental health) it’s such a kind of still a backwards way of kind of treating people on a human level who’ve had these kind of experiences. And, you know, you phone up and you’re asked: “Are you a service user?” And I think, you know, since when did I, you know, have this new kind of title, Service User McNamara, you know? Or you still get asked if you’re “a patient”. And service user, in my mind is a little bit preferable to being called a patient. But, you know, it’s….and this is with the services…I live in Hackney. Y’know, Hackney mental health services are supposed to be a

little bit more hip, a little bit more aware. And yet still, when you kind of encounter any form of the professionals, you know, the Community Mental Health Teams and so on, you’re immediately placed into this kind of little disempowered kind of box. And over the years…

Jet Moon

So I just want to clarify, you know, like when we’re talking about ringing up, you’re talking about ringing up, you know, mental health services or, you know, something to do with health care provision. And I also wanted to clarify, you know, that Survivors’ Poetry is very much peer organised and peer led.

Debbie Mcnamara 04:44
That’s essential to its whole nature, absolutely. Y’know, the nothing without… nothing about us without us, Y’know. I mean, it came from the survivor movement I know you wanted to sort of talk a little bit about that, but, again, Frank Bangay, who was such a great inspiration to so many people had encountered mental health services, and then found somebody called Eric Irwin who was in the same boat and together they got this little pressure group together called CAPO, which stood for Campaign Against Psychiatric Oppression. And Frank was also going to places like the Troubadour Cafe in Earl’s Court, which was a hub for this new form, which was performance poetry, and he was kind of blown away by this and was writing and taking his work there. And with CAPO and Eric, they were organising little poetry events in psychiatric wards and day centres. And, you know, taking it right into the heart of where survivors are. They had no funding, you know, they were paying out of their own pocket to produce these kinds of zines and putting together poetry from people that they encountered. And it was just totally started from from nothing, from rubbing sticks to make a little fire. And that was in the 70s in London.

But other people were kind of thinking along the same lines. So the Survivor Movement in the UK was born with groups like Survivors Speak Out, Recovery in the Bin, Speak Out Against Psychiatry. And in 1991, Survivors’ Poetry came out of Frank Bangay meeting up with Joe Bidder and his partner Hilary Porter, who were…who had also sort of happened across this live poetry scene and were ignited by it. And they had started a group, a poetry performance group called Cynics and Idealists. And the three of them…Peter Campbell kind of got involved, who was more kind of on the political side, but also a poet and this idea was born, you know: as survivors of the mental health system, we need to have our own dedicated space, we need to have our own non-hierarchical peer-led get-togethers.

And I mean there used to be this kind of cliche that “oh, the nutters all know each other”, y’know, the nutter on the bus will get off the bus and go and talk to other nutters and they all know each other. And it’s true and it’s remained the case today, and I’m proud to kind of push that further and, you know, to an international level with the Zoom meetings. But yeah, there’s always so much to talk about, and to share, there’s always that…that…that sizzle, and that buzz when survivors are together and sharing the experiences. Because we’re quite often, you know…oh sorry.

Jet Moon

It’s okay. I mean, I was just gonna say that: absolutely, i’ve had that experience of meeting other people and, you know, that isolation being broken and understanding, you know, sharing…sharing is so

essential, such an essential piece of knowledge. I also was wondering if Mad Pride was within this at all?

Debbie Mcnamara

Yeah. Well, that came along a little bit later. So I was working in East Wing, which is the local loony bin (where I’d been a patient and have been a patient since) for a project called Hackney Patients’ Council, which was an offshoot of City and Hackney MIND Advocacy Project, which had been formulated and and modelled by a very gifted mental health worker who was also a survivor called Robert Dellar who has very sadly since passed away. He died the day before his 52nd birthday; he had cancer. But he was one of the first people that I met when I moved to London in 1990/1991…yeah. It was just as all this was happening, I was lucky to kind of just arrive as things were, you know, people were having all these initiatives and doing all this new stuff. So I was a volunteer for his advocacy project working in East Wing, and then as part of his role I helped…you know, there was a group of us that was sort of spearheaded by Robert really who set up Hackney Patients’ Council and we had funding for…it was funded by the Health Authority and we had funding for four sessional workers and they gave us an office in the hospital. So that was kind of the introduction that I had to working in the hospital. I’ve forgot what your question was!

Jet Moon

It’s completely okay because I’m letting you talk, because we’ve pretty much flowing through the questions anyway, because, you know, I had asked you about how…what you…how you describe Survivors’ Poetry, and then I had a question about the history, but you’ve kind of been going through that. And then I think that we’ve sort of got to the part where you’re talking about how you got involved, you know, because I had read previously this interview with the National Survivor Users Network that you’ve done about survivors, poetry, you know, so I’d put a little bit of that history into the questions which I can, you know, we can go in with all the bits and pieces, but I’m…

Debbie Mcnamara

I’ve just remembered what the thread was

Jet Moon

Yeah, so I’m…there’s two kind of things.

Debbie Mcnamara

Can I go back to that…

Jet Moon 11:22 Yeah okay

Debbie Mcnamara

You asked about Mad Pride, yeah. So….so we got this Patients’ Council up and running. I was working in the office for Survivors’ Poetry at the time. So this was kind of, you know, people in Hackney you know, who were kind of getting together and just contributing their time. But it was part of Robert’s kind of job really, part of his his remit working for City and Hackney MIND, which was a lot more cutting

edge in those days than it is now, sadly. They’ve lost funding recently, it’s really tragic. But meanwhile…so another little fire that started somewhere else: two of the founders of my pride, Simon Barnett, and Pete Shaughnessy met each other at a picket line for the miners and became friends. And they were sharing their experiences of being mental health service users – ah! – survivors. And came up with this idea…sort of from the idea of gay pride, let’s have a mad pride. And Pete knew Robert and so Robert, you know, invited a few people that we had this meeting there was this anarchist cafe in Hackney called Pumpkins and we had this meeting. Oh, I’ve got…someone’s at the door I know what it is. Can I literally…can I come back

Jet Moon

I’ll just press pause, no worries.

Debbie Mcnamara

(laughter) I’m so sorry. Well ……So, yeah, yeah, Mad Pride, Hackney Patients’ Council, Simon Pete, Gay Pride, Mad Pride.

Jet Moon

So I tell you wha,t I wanted to ask about how you got involved in a slightly different way. Because when I read this NSUN interview, it talked about you being one of two workers employed back in the day when Survivors’ Poetry became a charity organisation and alongside that, because Y’know we’re talking about this whole writing, I wanted to ask about yourself y’know: are you a poet? If so, can I ask something about your writing? Because it’s always… y’know, you’re there behind the scenes doing stuff, but we don’t hear about your work and I’m interested.

Debbie Mcnamara

That’s so nice. Sorry, what was the first question?

Jet Moon

The first part is this thing of when you’re one of two workers.

Debbie Mcnamara

Yes. So I had heard through the survivor world that I had found in London, about Survivors’ Poetry and I was going to the workshops in Camden. There were workshops in Brixton as well and there were monthly performance events, and I was going to do those as well. And at that time, the four funders were just kind of…they got these projects up and running but there was somebody who worked at the Disability Unit in the Arts Council called Bushy Kelly who got in touch with Joe and she had heard about this, she said, you know, you should really apply for funding, which he did. So then the post materialised, and the office in the Diorama Art Centre. So I heard about the job through the workshops and applied and got the job.

And there’d been somebody working six hours a week from home doing national outreach for Survivors’ Poetry called Anna Nita and it was the last job that she had before she retired, she’d done various things and was a survivor herself. And so we had this little office between us at the diorama Art Centre, which was like a hub for…there were lots of disability organisations there like DAIL magazine, – which

stood for Disability Arts In London – LDAF and NDAF (London Disability Arts Forum, National Disability Arts Forum) and we were there as well. We got subsidised rent for the office from the Diorama Art Centre. And then on like the first and second floors there were, you know, sort of graphic designers and artists and studios and that sort of thing. And then there was a little cafe in the basement, so that was another hub it was a real, you know, quite interesting to go and have lunch and, you know, there was a community spirit amongst everybody who was there.

Jet Moon

Tell me about yourself as a poet,

Debbie Mcnamara

Myself as a poet? I’ve always written. I’m decluttering at the moment, which is quite a long process. I’ve been in my gorgeous flat for 30 years, and it shows. My mother passed away before the pandemic, my father years ago. So part of the clutter is stuff that, you know, that I went and kind of retrieved before we sold the house that she’d had. And I came across like little book that I’d written of poetry, you know, before I was 10. I mean, it was just…I dont know to create little books as well, that whole thing. So, so yeah, it’s always been there. And then love poetry, you know, as a teenager.

I went to university to do English and Drama and had always wanted to write. Before that I was in youth theatre in Leeds, Leeds Youth Players, it was called. I was writing sketches, we had like a sketch show every year and put it on a theatre in Leeds. So I was writing sketches for that. And I’d read somewhere that if you want to write, then you have to study literature. Malcolm Bradbury said this, apparently a he was a tutor at UEA, University of East Anglia. And I went and got an interview there but I didn’t like it. It was like this concrete, little campus site out in the middle of nowhere. So I went to Birmingham instead, which had a really brilliant English department, it was huge. And you know, had a very happy time there.

Less the drama department after the first year because, you know, it was it was kind of organised on the kind of…modelled on like RADA in the 1950s or something, you know, you weren’t allowed to act in the first year, you could only be in a support role to other people’s productions and there were all sorts of rules and regulations. And so many people left that year, I changed to sort of single honours, but carried on doing theatre with like the Student Union and um…The standard was so high, it was fantastic, had all these really gifted people and we did the Edinburgh Fringe and I directed…directed a play as well so…We did a sort of pump adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a multi-story car park on campus and, you know, we had all these cars that we bought cheap from a car dealer, we got a bit of funding, and we had these cars that were sort of brought to the multi-story car park and smashed up to, you know, drove them literally into each other to make the set and stuff. So yeah, that was an exciting time.

But I had always, you know, I come across bits of paper as I’m decluttering and I’m thinking “Oh, my God, I wrote that when I was 20”, I’m sure you’re the same, you know, you just find these things. And it’s….Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a way of, I don’t know, being that is…you can’t kind of…you know, you kind of learn, I think, to go into your inner self when you’re writing, and it’s so far apart from any other communication that we have with people. And I think it’s more than…it’s not just you recording your own

experiences, or, you know, writing your pain, or, you know, we talk about writing as ‘a revolutionary act of survival’, I love that phrase. You said the act of survival. But also, I think a way of contacting your inner self and letting it breathe and giving it life.

Jet Moon

I just want to ask a bit of a question. I mean, you know, listening to you I’m just thinking about what a richness there sounds to be of that time. Where people had places to meet, there was these massive English departments, there was funding for all these little hubs of different organisations, there were places to meet. There were bodies that were within the institution that were run by the people who were, you know, I don’t want, say service user, but, you know, people who are accessing, or trying to access health care, you know, that they are having influence and it feels so different.

But when you are talking about this activity of writing, I just want to pull it towards one of the questions because we’ve got this…we both have this relationship with peer knowledge. And I think I would ask you to speak about that building of peer-to-peer sharing and writing because you’re talking about writing being something more, and for me…and we’ve talked about those things where people meet and have those conversations, you know, the nutter finding that other nutter, you know, and just how amazing that can be. So, yeah, something about peer-to-peer sharing and writing and what meaning that has.

Debbie Mcnamara

I think it’s so vital, because you’re sharing work with people who, you know, you don’t have to kind of put a filter, you don’t have to play down any of these experiences, some of them are quite extreme. And also because I think with psychiatry, and I think any practitioner, any mental health…so-called mental health professional would absolutely agree that it’s a dehumanising experience. You know, you can just feel obliterated, and, you know, reduced to a diagnosis, and a set of prescriptions for drugs. And so it’s…and, you know, if you receive a diagnosis that’s a huge thing in itself: how do you kind of absorb that into your daily life? Is it something that you are going to promote about yourself? I mean, some people do like relate to their diagnoses. Other people reject…I mean, myself, I’ve kind of…it’s never felt particularly relevant. And in the years that I’ve been, you know, involved with mental health services that diagnosis has changed, according to whoever’s reading your notes at any given time anyway. But I think, you know, with survivors there’s this huge warmth, it’s about the person first.

And, yeah, in these times where, you know, neoliberalism has taken over, we’ve had 15 years of austerity, it felt targeted at groups like ourselves, and demographics like ourselves, who have always been grassroots. And even, you know, the very means of group survival was being taken away. But I’m just always inspired by the indomitable nature of survivors. For me, without fail, every survivor is a revolutionary, every survivor has this unbeatable spirit, and will, just by being here, you know, just getting through the day. That takes enormous strength for some people, you know, and at different periods of our lives, you know, we’ve had that struggle, which many people do, but, you know, it sets us apart. I mean, you know, the kind of quite extreme experiences about…around, you know, hospital admissions or, you know, if you’ve decided that you’re not going to go anywhere near the services, how you’ve got through those crisis times, you know, that can be so, so difficult. And, you know, if you’re lucky enough to have support around you, to help you through that, then, you know, it’s still that internal

fight, the pain, you know, it’s so extreme and also the stigmatisation in society as well. I mean, it never seems to go away.

I really do think it’s a great thing that so many people are talking about mental health these days, and I hope Survivors (Poetry), I believe Survivors’ Poetry has helped to change the narrative and to kind of bust the taboo around it. But still, if there’s sadly, tragically: if there are any murders, if there are any deaths that happen, and they’re reported on TV or in the news, you know, it all comes back up again.. you know, the scapegoating, attributing fear, they always use the diagnosis of that person. And lately…I mean, any individual has probably had four or five different diagnoses but, but lately, you know, they’re kind of saying “oh, so and so is a paranoid schizophrenic”. And, you know, this is on mainstream news, millions of people watching, and it’s as though this is a homogenous group that shares all these characteristics. So obviously you’re predisposed to think, if you meet someone else with that diagnosis, “Oh, my God, they’re gonna kill me”. And, you know, it’s always there kind of bubbling away.

Jet Moon

So, I’m thinking about, I mean, in my experience, I’ve found often that mental health provision can be extremely archaic. And that even though I feel there is change, say for example, I went to a disability exhibition in Manchester People’s History Museum, and there was a lot of stuff, you know, by people about mental health survivorship. And I mean, it’s amazing, but sometimes it’s also so sad because it feels like there is not a huge gap between Bedlam and how people are treated (now), you know that it’s not the gap that I imagine there should be.

And when I think about knowledge and writing, and transforming experiences, I’m thinking of how there’s institutional knowledge and then there’s our knowledge, which is somehow seen as less, but I don’t think it is. And I wonder if you could say anything about how you see writing as distinct from other forms of activism or is it distinct, you know? How does it function as part of survival? A bit more on this maybe.

Debbie Mcnamara

I think is distinct from other forms of activism. So, yeah, I mean, starting with kind of getting Hackney Patients’ Council together, and then getting Mad Pride off the ground and, you know, I’ve been involved in in a lot of groups, campaigning, you know, on various issues within mental health. But I always kept that connection with Survivors’ Poetry, you know, since I stopped working in the office, and I went to work in East Wing for Hackney Patients’ Council, stepped back in as an organiser in 2018.

And it just feeds the spirit, I think, writing, because you’re uttering the inner trouble, you’re putting into words… There’s an experimental element to survivor writing, because you really are kind of going into that land that is beyond most people’s experiences, and you’re finding words for it. You’re finding a way to communicate that experience that can bring it to other people, and enlighten and empower them by sharing; you know, by being able to find a form for what has happened.

I mean back in the 90s, Frank Bangay, and myself, he had lots of contacts, and there was someone who used to, who like provided training to mental health people, professionals. And he used to ask

Frank, and Frank used to ask me, to come along to read our poetry at these training events. And people would say “that’s the best insight that we’ve had, through the whole of this training.”

Because it…you know, writing it’s more than a window to a different world. It’s really a hand reaching through that window and saying to you just come in, you know, and look and see and smell and touch, just for as short as time as you wish or as long a time as you wish. And particularly it being survivor writing, there’s a whole kind of magic to it. Even though some experiences are really difficult and traumatic. It’s not just for the writer being able to kind of exorcise some of these demons and make your own load lighter, literally just by putting the words on a page, you know, that page is very heavy and it’s a heaviness that has come from you. And it’s not just about creating something durable about the transience of life as well. But it’s really about taking people into a realm where there are stronger forces at play than you might get, you know, in your kind of day-to-day, you know, daily life. It just takes you into a realm where you know that there’s….it has a mythic kind of proportionality to it, you know, things that are charged in a way that they are not in daily life and to be able to touch into that power by writing about it and then sharing that power with other people, you know, it’s a fantastic thing: it’s an enlightening thing.

Jet Moon

When you talk about that charged space, that magical space or that depth and heaviness it so matches with it being poetry, you know, as the medium that people (choose), you know? And I have been to a few survivor poetry gigs online, you know, that really helps me in terms of access. And I’ve read at one of them and I noticed that, you know, there’s a very big range present, some people are like very assured and obviously have like a practice as poets and other people might just be like trying things out or making a beginning. And there’s something in the way that the events are organised that you do to help people participate and take into account that it is based around that people are survivors of mental distress.

Debbie Mcnamara

Mmm. Sorry, what was the question?

Jet Moon

Is there something in terms of you as an organiser, how it’s structured, or is there something that you think that’s in there that helps people to feel welcome to participate, that is taking into account that it is survivors poetry?

Debbie Mcnamara

I mean, I’ve drawn on different things as the host of the Zoom sessions. So I’ve drawn on different things from from my past. So I trained to become a co-counselling facilitator, I’ve worked as a TEFL teacher teaching English as a foreign language. I just wanted to…for people to know that the boundaries are there and to know what’s going on. So, you know, we say it’s a safe space, and we actively make it a safe space. And kind of emphasise that, you know, we’re showing each other respect, we’re holding the space together, we’re holding our attention for other people. And you can really see how people’s work has just…I don’t know taken leaps and bounds with coming to the regular Zoom sessions.

I think it does engage hearing in a more powerful way, more so than then kind of going to like an open mic in person. You know, where…I don’t know there’s a lot, there’s a lot else going on and people feel the need to kind of be entertaining or be funny…um slams, you know, the competitive. So just…I think people recognise, you know, that we’re creating a space that’s apart from all of that, it’s a space for us. And the peer led thing, I think it just makes sense to people, you know, that this is a thing that we are doing together for our own benefit and the benefit of the people who were present at the time, yeah.

Jet Moon

To me it felt that people were very open about what kinds of things people brought to the space. Like really um….yeah, to me, it felt that people were just very accepting that lots of different subject matters and styles could fit under the umbrella. And it was, I felt that there was just a very considering. Just like that people were really holding the space and very supportive in that way. That was my impression.

Debbie Mcnamara

Yeah, absolutely. And I also think it’s a sign of the times that people are getting more daring with what they’re putting out there as well. And what’s getting funded for publishing through, you know, small community press projects, that people have the opportunity to, you know, to take stories into print that are from the margins very much. And it’s strange, because Survivors’ Poetry’s been going since 1991 but it’s, it stayed relevant and, you know, it’s stay current all that time.

I mean, I thought it was quite ahead of its time when I came across it. But it really comes back to the, you know, like the Buddhist idea of sangha, you know, the community and with the nutters who all know each other. And, you know, in those days that the idea of a nutter was someone who’d be wearing like a dirty anorak shuffling around, you know, in the rain with, you know, just…sort of from…somebody who you might not want to associate with and I love the way it’s kind of turning all the way around so you know, you’ve got every celebrity in the media is fessing up to some kind of survivor experience in their in their younger years or even currently. And it’s just got a different image to it. And yeah, it’s just really gratifying to see that, you know, having been on the bus the whole time to where we’ve got to now. And I think people can share that pride.

So Mad Pride, you know, in the late 90s bringing that whole notion of we’re reclaiming all those pejorative terms that have been used against us and you know, having massive events you know. The Mad Pride festival, which was the first big event that kick started Mad Pride that I was sort of very much involved with organising, was a one-day festival in Clissold Park and we had two soundstages, a chill out tent and a bar that you know, we just set up at the time and it was all through contacts made at festivals and the band’s you know, these kinds of anarchist bands like the Stratford Mercenaries and Pain you know, sort of big underground bands and 4000 people came, you know.

We had some kind of making up to do with the…with the people that worked in Clissold Park, there was like a user organisation who didn’t like what had happened but we’d stuck to what we said we would do, you know, we had bin bags, we collected all the empty cans and bagged everything up, you know. We didn’t actually do anything wrong, apart from it being huge, and it was bigger…in the end, it was far bigger than we thought it would be. So that that just showed, you know, this was people coming to support Mad Pride rather than thinking “Oh, that’s a nice day out in Clissold Park”. So yeah, the

excitement of that, you know, is something that I want to bring into Survivors’ Poetry these days, in its present incarnation.

Jet Moon

Um, thinking that I’m just gonna go and talk a little bit about the pandemic a bit because, uh, you know, all this talk of like, all these places where we’re meeting and stuff, and then, you know, obviously, the pandemic had a big impact on everybody. And, you know, I know that the poetry cafe had closed, and that there had been a loss of another venue and that Survivors’ Poetry became an online event and has continued as that. And um I wondered if you had a perspective or if there was something different in how Survivors’ Poetry functioned during the pandemic?

Debbie Mcnamara

Yeah, well, you know, the Zoom sessions were forged in the fire of the pandemic. So we were at the poetry cafe in February 2020 and we were just getting reports about this, you know, horrible virus. And then that was it, you know. March, they shut their doors. We went straight on to Zoom. Part of the training that I’d done to become a co-counselling facilitator had been on Zoom, so I knew how to use it, fortunately, so we set up straightaway. We got the money from NSUN, and they had a COVID fund.

And people have said, since…it’s really encouraging to hear when people say things, like, you know,…. (that) just having the next month’s Survivors’ Poetry zoom session to focus on, to practice a song or to write something else, you know, to keep writing, helped people to keep going. People were joining from psychiatric wards. There was someone who said that it stopped her from getting into the space of depression where she would self-harm, just by having this event to focus on that, you know, which…I mean it was a revelation for me, the whole Zoom idea and…Yeah, people do miss having a live audience but we’ve brought so much more to each other.

I think there’s an intimacy with Zoom that you can’t get at live events. But having said all that, I have just booked the Harrison bar in…10 minutes from Kings Cross for the first of May to have a re-launch event in person for Survivors’ Poetry, so I’m going to be kind of letting fly with the publicity for that later this week. But keeping the Zoom sessions going as well. I mean we’ve got people coming regularly from Australia and the Middle East and the States and, you know, outside of London, who were there every month, and who were saying that it’s helped them to find a voice as a poet, and they’re taking that elsewhere, so applying for small grants to do things, or for places on retreats for writers, and just in a small way, being more present as poets.

And, you know, I think the strength of the group at Survivors is such a positive thing that, you know, helps people to develop as well. And, yeah, I mean, I think for me, it’s always the case when you hear somebody who maybe hasn’t written much before and, you know, is still learning their craft. I mean, for heaven’s sake, I’ve been writing for years and years (laughs). Honing is something that is always happening, but someone who hasn’t written so much before and can come with something that will actually, you know, knock you between the eyes and just blow you away. I think that’s another powerful thing about the whole act of writing as well is that we all have language, you know, we’re all writers, we’re all artists, we’re all, you know, children who are artists, that sort of 24/7 incredible creativity that

small children have, that’s all of us. And when people talk about “oh, the inner child”, I mean, it’s the inner artist really that they’re talking about. So just to have a space to revere that

Jet Moon

Playful creator.

Debbie Mcnamara

Mmmm yeah, the risk taker,

Jet Moon

I found the media stuff during the pandemic quite difficult, because there was a lot about the effect of lockdowns on people’s mental health, and the experience…and for me, I was just thinking well, I’m inside a lot already, I’m having my own mental health stuff already you know? And I just felt like “Oh, finally” like people who are isolated have…it was as if, you know, those people had only just sprang into being. It was really bizarre how it was talked about.

Debbie Mcnamara

There was a part of me, I think, that was thinking “Well, now everyone knows what it’s like”, you know, to be sort of stuck indoors and not able to go out for one reason or another. Even if, in that period, it was just because the Prime Minister was saying, you know, we have to stay (inside), but yeah. And again, you know, we were completely sold down the river by mental health services. A time when you would expect there to be increased support, it was the opposite. And where I am in Hackney, you know, they cut all face-to-face contact, so that was the emergency clinic – which was really, you know, heavily used – completely disappeared, and they didn’t have time to speak to people on the phone. And so, you know, it was kind of every man for himself really. And it was fantastic that, you know, we were able to operate on Zoom and turn to each other and find, you know, succour and support through each other. Some people died, you know, we were able to grieve together.

Jet Moon

Can I ask an actual question about that, you know, because I mean, with the mental health services, I remember like beings suddenly sent a YouTube link to a like a do-it-yourself course on PTSD, which was such a pile of shit like – it was like they’d made it in five minutes. It was really, really shit. But then, um, I want to ask you this thing about like grieving as part of Survivors’ Poetry, because you know, I’m in…more feel myself connected with like 12 step recovery – but people die – and it can be very raw; but there’s also something for me very particular about how quite a broad community grieve and understand the loss. And I was gonna ask about this.

Debbie Mcnamara

Yeah, well, I think part of the horror of the time were, you know, you couldn’t visit people in hospital and there were restricted funerals. You know, five or six people max to go to funerals. And people were coming to Survivors’ Poetry and hearing about people who had died. I mean, there were a few, it wasn’t like there was, you know, 20. But there were, you know, four or five. And they would hear, and “oh my god, you know, I didn’t know”. There was no way for us to reach each other than through the Zoom events during the pandemic. And when (named person) died, we had a night dedicated to him where

people were reading his poetry and speaking about him because he’d been around since the beginning, and he was really a feet on the streets kind of person, he was there at all the Survivors’ Poetry events throughout all of those years but loads of other events as well with his poems, and, you know, and then it felt just really necessary to have the space just to remember (him) when he died. But there were others as well. And currently, there’s someone who’s a very long-term member of Survivors’ Poetry who’s having a difficult time and has for the last…yeah since kind of January last year really, and, you know, again, it’s the people who he’s formed connections with through Survivors’ Poetry who have helped to support him through all of that time and consistently, you know, with visits and practical things. And so, it’s a genuine thing, it really moves me, you know.

It’s not just that you kind of… we meet, and we listen to each other and then off we go. But, you know, people are forming connections outside of those Zoom events as well. And I think, you know, the heart and soul of that, and because it’s a non-capitalist thing as well, you know, (recording breaks up) out to make money. It’s…I don’t know, it’s…I mean, I’d got into Buddhism very early when I was about 14, or 15, this whole idea of sangha, you know, if you meditate on your own, that’s good. But if you meditate in a group of people, it can be amazing. And I found that with Survivors’ Poetry, if you write on your own it’s very powerful, you know, you can be in quite an extreme state when you’re when you’re writing. But the whole group thing, whether it’s grieving, whether it’s sharing your poetry, respecting and holding the space for each other, I mean they’re very fundamental, powerful things. And I think it’s something that we know, in ourselves innately; the whole “no man is an island” kind of thing. That when you when you do kind of engage in creative healing, on a group level, I do believe that it really…it actually has a palpable real effect in real terms.

Jet Moon

I absolutely, obviously, share that view. Um, you know, I was thinking of, you know, I mean, I think that this and other things, you know, it’s a real radical form of social care and change, as you saying community building. And I wanted to ask something, because I had made a sort of a question about funding, but I think that one of the things I’m really curious about is like…my perception is that there are less places to meet, there are less resources, there’s less of the….I don’t know, I feel like I used to be able to like maybe like, walk into a social centre and sit down and then I’ve suddenly like found a flat to move into because I’ve met someone you know, like, and I don’t know where these spaces are anymore.

Debbie Mcnamara

Yeah, I think they’ve gone. They absolutely have. What I do think is that the poetry scene seems to kind of be rebelling against that. And there are so many poetry groups now in the last couple of years, I think since the pandemic and since people have started going out again, you know, across London. I don’t know really about outside London apart…but the Zoom sessions that are happening all around the country as well and people are…there’s this overlap that hasn’t been there before. So I completely agree with you, you know, cafes…like the anarchist cafe I was talking about was just the place like that, that’s gone. And I’m thinking in Hackney, you know, there is nowhere to kind of meet with birds of a feather. There used to be a place called Centerprise bookshop on my high street that had a cafe and it was a bookshop, I mean, all of these spaces have gone, you’re right. But I do believe that the poetry scene that people are drawn to, this whole kind of act of being visible after being shut away and being

cut off from each other, it’s kind of having a rebound effect. And, you know, we want to be part of that with the in-person events as well. So, you know, we’re coming back to live events too.

Jet Moon

You mentioned that there were all these small presses.

Debbie Mcnamara

I mean, the major one that I know of in London is London Poetry Books and that’s spearheaded by Jason Why who runs the Paper Tiger poetry nights. You know, people are coming along to his events, and they’re getting up, they’ve never read in public before and then he’ll get up on the stage and he said “that was brilliant, would you like to be part of our publishing projects?” And all of a sudden, you know, they’re gonna be a published poet and it’s a fantastic thing.

And there are more book fairs happening, as well. But just recently, you know, you’ll see there’s kind of more things that are coming up on my feed, telling me that, you know, this is something that currently people have kind of alighted on as a means not just to express themselves on an individual basis, but connect with other people as well. It’s such a good thing, it’s really, you know…it’s as if we’ve been sort of, you know, floating on our kind of reducing glacier in the sea thinking “Oh, no, we’re not the last, are we?” and then all of a sudden, you know, all these other things are popping up around as well and, you know, it’s only going to be good in terms of groups, you know, supporting each other.

And, you know, we’ve got a bit of crossover as well, like, there’s a few poets who hadn’t heard of Survivors’ Poetry but are getting up and, you know, performing survivor material at these other events. So I’m kind of always, you know, going up to… people and asking for email addresses and putting them on my mailing list and, you know, kind of we’re morphing all the time to kind of encompass all of this.

Jet Moon

It sounds like a really encouraging bubbling up of all energy.

Debbie Mcnamara

Yes!

Jet Moon

Any writing of survivors that you…that’s been especially important to you, anyone who you name you know?

Debbie Mcnamara

Yeah, well, I’ve got a list. I’ve got like, loads of bits of paper here. Where is my list rather than…Oh, Sylvia, Plath is the big one. I just came across The Bell Jar when I was a teenager, and it was just like “Oh, my God, you know, that speaks to me”. And her poetry, as well, you know, just…as I was studying English at school and then at university, and it was just like, you can take the form, you can do what you want with it, you know, all these rules of form, poetic structure and, you know…it’s there for you to use and that has always appealed.

And also when (laughing) I mean, I went to this all-girls Catholic school that had a convent attached to it and some of our teachers were nuns. But looking at the actual education, I mean, it was quite…some of the stuff that we were doing was dramatic, you know, extreme state kind of stuff. So in the sixth form, I was transported by the Duchess of Malfi, That’s by Webster – I mean, it’s a play and it’s written in blank verse – But, you know, she’s put into an asylum and tortured. And reading John Donne as well, you know, they have real extremes of emotion that he has in his poetry. Wilfred Owen, who had neurasthenia. I was reading Virginia Woolf as well. And just kind of naturally finding my way to writers who, you know, had mental health issues without knowing, you know, we didn’t have that (framework).

Jet Moon

Oh,

Debbie Mcnamara

Experience those extremes, this is (sound breaks up)

Jet Moon

You’re breaking up a little bit.

Debbie Mcnamara

Oh okay. But, but always thinking this is where, you know, you’re gonna get your soul food. I mean the whole act of writing is something that nourishes and feeds you. And I mean, these days….Oh, yeah, William Blake, you know, that whole see the world in a grain of sand, transcendental stuff. I mean, it’s, it’s knockout stuff, it really is. But these days, I mean I’ve got a whole list of names of people, I don’t know if I can say them or not.

Jet Moon

I might not be able to fit them all in Debbie.
Well, I want to ask you: would you be…would you have something to say to survivors who wish to write, like words of encouragement or why writing – even if it’s in private or public – like, yeah, just why it’s important just to do it.

Debbie Mcnamara

Well, to keep going, because it’s not just you in isolation, it’s not just you, you know, going along for appointments in an outpatient clinic and feeling that it’s odd and uncomfortable, you know. There are…there is a whole community of people who, who can relate to that.

And just to keep writing, keep believing in your writing as well, you know, and be courageous with it. And, you know, if you do take that step to come to groups where you’re sharing that: whether that’s Zoom groups or live groups, just be brave, you know, just to…to stand up to the microphone or to let people know, you know, what’s going on with you. You know, it’s quite a thing to do and you’ll…well, you know, you can’t really promise healing to someone else, can you? That sounds a bit charlatan.

But I would say, you know, through personal experience over the past few years that writing and sharing at the Zoom events regularly, it does…it grounds you, keeps your feet on the ground even if

your heart and your mind are kind of soaring off into the clouds. And just, you know, to welcome the experiences you’ve had as central to your creativity. And that people, you know, within survivor circles and beyond, will love you for it. So, to always feel positive about those experiences and never regret, and, you know, whatever you may feel you’ve lost, I feel like I’ve lost a whole career basically. But, you know, at the end of the day, what you gain from that is always going to be, you know, of more benefit to the universe, I think and to yourself on a personal level. So, so yeah.

Jet Moon

Ah thank you. That theme of, you know, what can feel very diminishing as an experience then being like this powerful seed or nugget of gold, has just been something that’s like – that thing to actually generate something from the experience, rather than just be destroyed – has been something that’s come up in a lot of interviews. I’m aware that you’ve got a list and I don’t know, if you want to read the list? Is it important?

Debbie Mcnamara

The list of names of people who I’m influenced by now, just to go back to what you said: yeah, we say that we’re spinning gold, you know.

But yeah, I mean, it’s by no means exhaustive but the people who I’m influenced by now, they’re all current, quite a few are not published. And you can only hear them if they come and read. But Holly Bars, Steve Tasane, Tony Lloyd, Razz, Frank Bangay of course he had a book called Naked Rhythms and Songs of Hope. Cedar Whelan, Hannah Stanislaus, Jessica Lawrence, Pat Flowers, Rachel Tansy Chadwick, Chaz Grammer, Anna Somerset, The Woman with No Name, Slowslow Zo, Ciara White, Nayma Chamchoun, John Adlam, Julie Wood, Dave Russell, Kane Corvus, Alain English, George Tahta, Lee Campbell. It goes on and on! But these are all poets (who identify as Survivors and read / perform with us) A few of those are poets that who I’ve come across, kind of on the live scene. Steve Tasane has been sort of one of the people who’s put the poetry scene together in London since the early 90s. George Tahta also kind of dates back to that time, that kind of carbon dating of a poet. David Russell, he’s one of the long-term members of Survivors’ Poetry, it’s just this…and then people who are coming to it who are younger, but who…I think you know, when you hear a beat, or you hear a certain song, and you think I know that, I know that sound and you seek it. And that’s what’s happening with us.

Jet Moon

What I might do is also get you to send me that list so that when we look at the transcript, we get the names right, because that will help because I think that the transcript can struggle with names sometimes. Um I might stop recording.

(An extended list – provided post interview by Debbie has been added to a longer version of the interview and surrounding materials, held at Wellcome Collection).