I have loved poetry all my life, but for years I thought it belonged to other people: the confident, the well read, the ones who already knew what they wanted to say. I was always in awe of those who could weave spells with their words. I would read their books or listen to them at poetry events and feel overwhelmed by how a few simple words could carry so much emotion. I never thought that could be me.

I grew up working class in the Black Country, where language is practical and poetry was not something you admitted to liking, let alone writing. Throughout my life I have also struggled with mental illness, addiction, and physical limitations, all of which have affected my sense of self-worth.

In the 80s and 90s, when there was far less understanding or kindness around mental illness, writing was often suggested as a tool to help people process difficult experiences. Over the years I was encouraged to write about my emotions, but I found this hard and never shared what I produced. I would burn or shred my work in case anyone found it by accident. There was a lot of dark stuff in those mad ramblings.

Eventually, writing my own poetry became something associated with bad times, something I only did under duress. Proper poets were not people like me. They were educated, sophisticated, creative. Everything I believed I was not. I convinced myself I would be laughed at, possibly even poked with sticks, if I tried to enter that world.

Earlier this year, supported by my husband and a close friend, and inspired by reading about writers with similar backgrounds to mine, including last year’s New2theScene poetry winner Kate Bramhall, I stopped worrying about what I was expected to do and what others might think of me, and simply started putting words down.

At first, writing was a way to make sense of the noise in my head, the patterns and contradictions. It quickly became more than that. Writing now feels like finding the right frequency after years of static. After a while, I plucked up the courage to share a few poems with my friend, who is an accomplished and well respected published poet. Their response was simple and immediate: “No, they’re not shit.”

Buoyed by that encouragement, I began sharing my work on Bluesky. After years of being afraid to let my voice be heard, I was surprised by how warmly my poems were received, particularly given how personal much of the work is. The poetry community there has been generous, kind, and instrumental in helping me build the confidence to submit my work to publications and competitions.

I am still at the beginning of this journey, but in the past six months having some of my poems published in online publications and journals, and being selected as the winner of the New2theScene 2025 Poetry Competition, means I am learning to trust that my voice has value, and that it deserves space in the world.