Welcome to Survivors' Poetry

Survivors' Poetry is a London-based National arts charity (Reg. No. 1040177) that works to support, promote and publish the poetry of people who have been through, or are currently in, the UK’s mental health system. We work with ‘survivors’ of psychiatric illness, drug addiction, sexual abuse, and mood-altering medication. Many of our clients have experienced the dark end of life in psychiatric hospitals, prisons, rehabilitation units, or counselling centres; all are trying hard to get their lives back together again. 
 

News :   Forthcoming Mentoring Scheme Publications in 2010   

Joanna Watson
Inkblotting

Joanna Watson’s poems have been quietly winning prizes and appearing in well-regarded journals for many years.   Collected here, they gift the reader with an

array of her most particular talents: pointillist portraits of extreme circumstances; pizzazzy neologisms and strict formal challenges; tender probings of

uncomfortable yet uncomplaining truths.
Naomi Foyle
Poet and Mentor

Bruce James
Songs from Silence

There is honesty without device in Bruce James’ selected poetry. People that have known him and his work over the years will be pleased to hear of this

collection. The texts swell in confidence without mischief as the songs spring from very real places that many of us are only briefly privy to, and are here

transcribed by James’ for already trusted, and new audiences.  In the telling of  histories and the survival of ourselves in relation to the natural, built and spiritual

joinings with a nurturing heaven existing beyond what we have made of heaven, James shows the lived experience of the universe from the perspective of  ‘lights

coming on once the applause has diminished…’ – he is a rare and  gifted Poet.
Philip Ruthen
Writer, and Chair of Survivors’ Poetry  
 

 The Mentoring Scheme is funded by

We have restarted and relaunched our Survivors' Poetry Forum.

Please Click Here to visit and sign up.

What we do
Survivors’ Poetry is a survivor-led arts group coordinating artistic activities using poetry to make connections between creativity and mental health. SP uses poetry workshops, readings, performances, music, visual arts, publishing, recording and other arts activities by and for survivors of the mental health system as a means to explore wellbeing. We believe that survivors have a particular hitherto unexplored artistic perception and contribution to offer society. Put more simply, Survivors’ Poetry exists to help all survivors combat the effects of mental distress in the most creative and personally empowering ways possible.

Our Vision
A world which celebrates the creative expression of survivors through poetry.

Mission
Coordinating artistic activity, publishing and promoting poetry by survivors. Supporting and developing survivors poets and establishing communication networks. Challenging and changing the social and cultural definitions of poets and poetry. Making connections between creativity and mental health.

If you want to find our more about us - get in touch!

Simon Jenner
Director of Survivors' Poetry