Poet

I've spent this evening at the 'Off The Page' literary showcase at The Bluecoat listening to a wondrous selection of writers who've been supported by the good people at Writing On The Wall (WoW) perform their work. These included members of The Rainbow Writers group which we've funded as part of our World Mental Health Day programme over the last 18 months and Gemma Roberts who won our 'Mental Health and Me' writing competition earlier this month. There were also amazing, moving and exciting performances from grandmothers who are members of the Kindred Carers group and are bringing up their grandchildren for a variety of often heartbreaking reasons, the winner of WoW's 'Pulp Idol' competition for first time novelists and a group of people who've had strokes but have found new ways of communicating through writing. And much, much more!

The star of the show, for me, was Amina Abdullah who's a member of 'Word Up', Liverpool's Young Writers Group. She read three of her brilliant poems with style, poise and élan and brought the house down. She also exhibited terrific dress sense - teaming her hijab with a fabulous red tartan skirt and enormous goth boots. Great stuff!

Afterwards, I just had to ask her whether she'd mind posing for a picture and she was gracious enough to say yes!

I've heard a couple of pieces on the radio in the last week or so about whether Black poets are afforded the same respect and status within the literary canon as white writers are or whether they're categorised as 'performance poets' and thus, somehow, less respected. This brings up loads of thoughts for me which I wish I had time to explore in depth here... but I can safely say that Amina has the potential to hold her own in any poetic company and I wish her well. I think she's going places!