#154 FiLiA Legacy Project Meets Sharena Lee Satti
“Sometimes we fail to appreciate ourselves, to appreciate our work. We need to start acknowledging that.”
In this episode of the FiLiA podcast, we speak to poet Sharena Lee Satti about her work and inspiration.
Writing has never been optional for Sharena Lee Satti. Like eating and breathing, it’s something integral to her existence. Every day she is thankful to be able to make a small difference to society, sharing something she is deeply passionate about.
In January 2020 a literary agent (The Verve Poetry Press) saw her potential and that was the beginning of a new chapter of Sharena’s professional literary life. She published her book "She" in Autumn 2020.
"The poems in She cover an already long career as an inspiring live poet, host and workshopper. Her poems are real, raw and honest, addressing issues such as survival, cultural-identity, life’s battles, self-love, body dysmorphia and many other subjects that people struggle to speak out about. Her love of nature is also evident. She writes with her emotions to the fore and her heart at the centre – with a power that can leave you breathless."
Listen here (Transcript below):
Transcript:
Lisa-Marie from FiLiA in conversation with Sharena.
Lisa-Marie: So everyone who's listening, I'm Lisa-Marie, I'm one of the volunteers with FiLiA. FiLiA is a women's rights organisation, and we focus very much on amplifying the voices of women, particularly those less often heard or purposefully silenced. And this book group is part of the video legacy project, which is about promoting collaboration and network building and training and skills development with local women and by local women, I mean, women in Portsmouth and the surrounding area.
So hello to you all. A huge, thanks to our funders, who've allowed us to buy 20 copies of each of the books every month so that we can gift those to local women. So just a quick thank you to them.
Sharena is an independent open mic poet. There's lots of workshops as well. She's from Bradford and her poetry has been described as ‘raw, real and honest.’ And I would concur with that completely.
Sharena covers a broad range of topics, including survival, cultural identity, body dysmorphia, self-love, mental health during lockdown.
The book that we've been looking at this month is called ‘She’. There's a copy there. It was published in late 2020. And I think I'm right in saying, it's your fourth poetry collection? Is it?
Sharena: It's my first professionally published, but yeah.
Lisa-Marie: Oh, wonderful. So you've done Testing Times, Broken Chains and Unapologetic previously.
I was thinking Sharena when we met, we met two years ago, near enough, today and we met in a cafe Bradford. FiLiA was coming to Bradford and so many women that I was meeting were saying, you must meet Sharena, you must meet, you must meet Sharena.
And we ended up meeting and I looked back in my diary and I didn't write much in my diary. It's just notes of who I've met and what have you. And I've put in my diary two years ago, ‘what a privilege it is to have met Sharena and how lucky I am to have been able to do this.’
You read a poem at FiLiA 2019.
I just want to introduce our listeners to you Sharena so our listeners are women who've joined us for a previous book readings. We've covered subjects, such as FGM and victim blaming. Some of them have joined us on a recent session on feminist leadership and many have spoken about wanting to find their voice.
We've never looked at a book on poetry before, this is our first. So welcome.
The first question I have is: I think your poetry is raw. It's very honest, and there's a vulnerability about it as well. Was it a big decision to open yourself up in that way to the public?
Sharena: Yeah, it's amazing to be here, so thank you so much for allowing me to be here and for everyone listening today. So I've always been kind of open and I've been open because I've experienced quite a lot. So growing up as a child to my teens and my adulthood, I’ve experienced, different experiences that made me feel like I needed to share them.
I needed to share them so that others could just see this human side of me as well, to see that it's acceptable to share your vulnerability. I think people feel like you can be vulnerable and open up at the same time. And I wanted to share my own ability to the people that it's okay to share yours. It's okay to share your own story and your own truth and in hope that it might inspire other people to share theirs
Lisa-Marie: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that insight. And you've been very open about your childhood and we did have a chat before this webinar started. You're happy to share some of your childhood experiences and your life really, with the audience now thinking particularly about those parts that informed your poetry later in life.
Sharena: Yeah. So I started writing poetry when I was about six, seven years old, and then it was very basic, it was like cat on the mountain and silly little rhymes I really enjoyed just writing and it all stemmed from writing in diaries and things like that. I loved writing. English was always something that I loved doing in storytelling and things like that. But then I started writing more to do with my childhood experiences.
So my mum and my dad split up quite young and my mom became a single parent and she suffered a lot with mental health. And she had numerous different partners, which then resulted in lots of domestic violence. And my mum was in and out of lots of mental health institutions, which left my older siblings looking after us as kids.
And I saw relief through writing poetry. I used to write down things and I'd write it down as a diary and ended up with these very rhymey type poems. And it was like, it was just a natural way for me to release how I was feeling. And it was a safe way for me to release what I was feeling, because we were surrounded by lots of authorities that we had, like social services involved and things like that.
And I didn't feel safe enough to be able to speak to them. And I felt like if I was going to speak to social services, that I was going to get my mom in trouble and I felt very protective about her, even though I shouldn't have really felt protective about her but I really did. I kind of want it to protect my mom.
Writing was like a cathartic process for me to just get it out and to, I say poetry saved my life and it did.
Lisa-Marie: I think we might as well just jump straight in. Thank you for that, and ask you to read your first poem. I think that follows on nicely from what you've just said about poetry, saving your life and for anyone who's got Sharena’s book with them, this is page 50 and Sharena has agreed to read the poem. I survive. Thank you.
Sharena:
I survived.
I should have crumbled under the pressure of everyday life.
I'm lucky to even be alive, to be stunned in here.
I've dived in the darkest sea and I've drowned in its fear
I was once a child trapped in a whirlwind of domestic violence and poverty.
I was hungry for the life that didn't choose me.
I held onto my faith that one day I'd see
a better life for sweet escape, something for me
to change this damn reality that I'm living every day,
struggling to survive this hard hitting life that suppressing me,
I failed to fit in at school.
I'll stick to any rule because I had too much going on at home.
And my thoughts were continuously raw
trying to block out the alcoholic fights
that would happen every other night
or the ambulances his blue flashing lights.
I still believe that this life wasn't meant for me,
that I'm more than worthy
of my life being happy,
being love for me.
No expectations,
no family complications are being seen as another day.
Or being seen as the outcast,
the kid that didn't last or take any GCEs
because whilst those other kids were studying,
I was mothering my youngest siblings and my family.
I missed out on my education
and I fought back the frustration that was destroying me.
I pulled myself together and took on my own responsibility.
I knew one thing for sure,
I would never endure or suffer anymore
this life that was forced upon me.
So I decided to erase that path and write my own destiny.
Lisa-Marie: Thank you. Thank you. I know I'm looking at the names of the attendees. I know we've got at least one woman on there who likes to write. Hello. So thank you ever so much for that.
You were, as you alluded to in that poem, you were an early carer. You're a young carer for your siblings weren't you. How did that impact on you?
Sharena: Yeah, it had a huge impact because I missed out on a lot. So I missed out on a lot of my childhood because I was at home a lot looking after my younger siblings.
I missed out on my education, so I stopped school at like 11, 12 years old. even though school tried to get us in quite a lot, there's a few authorities that were like trying to get us into school. It obviously resulted in us not being in school, you know, constantly missing school to look after my mom or to look after my brothers and they didn't go to school either.
When I went into school as well, I kind of like worried what was going on at home. I always didn't know what I'd be walking home into and things like that. So yeah, it did cost me a lot as a child.
Lisa-Marie: You came through it and your poetry is extraordinarily powerful, describing that journey.
So let's have a look at your journey from then on, from young carer to finding poetry as a teenager, because that was quite a turbulent time in your life. Wasn't it?
Sharena: Yeah, so my mom and my sisters, they were all on medication for mental health, every single one of them was on pills. And for me, I kind of, I thought that I needed medication too, I thought I had mental health issues.
So I went to my doctor. I was about, I think it was 13. And I went on my own, which is fairly odd now because I thought like with my own daughter, going to the doctor on her own, I'd be there with her. So being 13 years old and going to the doctors and saying I want medication. I want to be like my mom and my sisters, I've got mental health issues.
And I had this big pile of poems in my hand. And the doctor says, what's that? I says, it's what I do. I write a lot of my feelings down and emotions. He looked at my poems and said ‘You don't need tablets or medication, you just need a little bit of help and advice and just someone to help you along the way.’
And it was that moment. I just, I was shocked because I expected him to just give me tablets to just be like, my mom would be like my sisters, but he didn't. and that was kind of like a changing point for me, because prior to that, I was in a world where drinking alcohol, like from the age of 10 upwards and smoking weed, trying different drugs. Going to the doctor at that point was like a new lifeline of like someone seeing something in me that I wasn't maybe broken or I kind of used that word quite a lot, but yeah.
Lisa-Marie: Okay. And you talk as well about growing up mixed race and you say simultaneously struggling to understand my own identity as a mixed race, young woman of English, Indian, and Pakistani descent. What sort of impact or experiences were there?
Sharena: So my mom's English and Pakistani but she never knew her father. So she always grew up English to her and her sisters and brothers are all English. so she never had any culture around her. And my dad's full Indian, but I never really got to know his side of the family. So I grew up on a white council estate and to me, that's all I ever knew.
I didn't know that, well, I didn't know obviously my colour skin is different. I'm different looking, but I always see myself as just this English kid, like everybody else. And I wasn't accepted, like, I didn't feel like I was accepted by my mom's side because we was like the brown kids and then I didn't feel accepted from my dad's side because even though we were the same colour, we were too English.
So we kind of felt like we didn't have that place of fitting in. I grew up not knowing who I was and then my sisters, because they've got different dads. My sisters are Dominican and I grew up from the age of 10 till 16 perming my hair, because I wanted to be Dominican like my sisters.
I got bullied a lot, people would say harsh words. So it was better to look differently like my sisters, being Dominican rather than being Asian, you didn't get as much stick. So when I started curling my hair it kind of confused people to what and I didn't get as much stick growing up.
There was a bit of a loss of identity. I didn't quite know who I was or where I fitted in. It was only in my adulthood that I love being mixed race now. It's like a complete blessing. I've got the best of both worlds in me.
Lisa-Marie: And you struggled with body image as well. I think many are too many, far too many girls and young women do.
You struggled with body image? Was this in your teens and how did you manage that?
Sharena: Yeah, I struggle with body image all my life. I think growing up it was so difficult because I've always had a very woman's body at such a young age. So at like 10, 11, I developed like boobs and I had these hips and I had all these curves. I wrote a poem about this. Prying Eyes. You get men looking at you and you're just a child and it always made me feel very insecure and very like uncomfortable. I'd find myself wearing these really long jackets to try to cover myself up. And I always had this thing about like having long hair like it just covers me, like a bit of a cloak.
I've always been very insecure about my curves and I think it just stems from the prying eyes and people looking at me when I was just a child and not being able to like fully accept and feel comfortable in my own skin growing up
Lisa-Marie: You go through it.
Sharena: Yeah. Yeah. I think I still have moments where I'm a bit, oh, I feel fat today. Or I feel like this, I feel like that, but it's not a negative type of body image now. I love my body and I know that my body's been through so much and you know, we've got to embrace our curves our flaws. Because, I've got girls as well watching, so I've got to show that our bodies are amazing things, and we've got to love what we have and embrace what we have.
Lisa-Marie: Couldn't agree more. And you said that writing has never been optional for you. It's like eating and breathing. And when you talk about spilling ink onto paper and poetry is your one and only cure.
Talk to me about this because my background in genetics, okay. I haven't got a poetic bone in my body, I love reading your poetry and it gives me goose pimples, but that sense of that poetry writing to you is how you live and how you breathe.
Is there any way you can capture the essence of that for the women who are listening?
Sharena: So I think for some people, some people have a release by maybe going to the gym. Some people have a release by going for a long walk, or maybe having a glass of wine or having chocolate or something like that.
But for me, I have to write. I feel like I need to write to feel good within myself. It's kind of like when I say like living and breathing, I have to capture sometimes my emotions, my thoughts onto paper for me to feel a bit human, I suppose. When I don't write, I kind of feel a bit withdrawn by myself.
It's a positive, it's a bit of time for myself. It's the time that I take out for me without others being around. And it's a time I can just focus on me and my emotions and connect to myself as well.
Lisa-Marie: Yeah. Can you read another poem for us, which relates to what we've just been talking about.
And for anyone who's got their book with them, it's page 59 and it's Dear Body. And it's a brilliant response to the things you've just spoken about. Thank you.
Sharena: Dear Body
I've hated you since I first noticed my breasts begin to form
As my hips started widen and my arse started to transform
every line, every curve you curse me.
I've always hated you, body
You gave me a woman's body and I was just a child.
You triggered eyes like a light switch,
Sniggers and smiles that contributed to me hatting you.
I've never loved you or liked you.
I pretended to many a times
feeding my mind those lies that I love the way my body curves.
And isn't just a straight line.
How it's formed like the waves that are my skin,
I've always loved the sea,
but I've never been able to love you body
or escape you from me.
I'd be suffocating under the layers of skin.
And I've deeply tried to love you more than I've hated you.
I've tried to
trust me I've tried,
but every time I said I look ok today.
I lied I hated the way my clothes always show
every damn curve.
And I'm sorry I never give you the love you truly deserve.
I've always complained and tried to change the way you are.
Leaving myself with these mental scars,
these deep embodied cruel thoughts that I allowed to saunter in and out of my thoughts.
to torment my own self.
I have never praised you once or thanked you for my health
for holding my internal organs in place.
Allowing my heart to beat
At the very times, you should have admitted defeat.
You never gave in.
Just kept loving at me from within
kept my heart beating
my lungs, breathing.
You kept me alive
Dear body thank you for this life.
I'm sorry I have always sacrificed this life within
I’m learning to love you more.
Every curve, every imperfect flaw
I'm trying to heal this body dysmorphia war.
Starting from the roots, the inner core of the mind, changing the thoughts of a kindness with love. Love for me.
Lisa-Marie: Thank you. I love that. Beautiful.
We've had a question. So how do you write? Does an idea come and you have to write it down or do you sit to write and the words just come or a mixture of both or how? So what's that process for you?
Sharena: I love writing when my emotions are high, when my emotions are high, even if that's a happy high or a sad high or a sad low, I love writing.
When I'm feeling like my mind's a bit busy and I need to just get something out. So sometimes at that moment, writing poetry can be so easy because I can just sit there for under an hour and I can create the most amazing poem from how I'm feeling inside. And sometimes it takes a bit more time.
So if I'm creating a certain poem, like I've created a few commission pieces, it'll take me a bit more time. I'll research things and I'll put things together. I like to research a lot of my work before I put a poem together and for commissioned work and I could just sit there and it could take me about a week because I want to make it as good as I can to get it.
Poetry writing for me comes from the heart and it comes from your emotions and, and what you want to get out and how you want to express it.
Lisa-Marie: And I hope that answers the question for the woman who asked it, and I love that you tackle issues head on and thinking about issues that are personal to you. And to talk about body image and celebrating body confidence. And you were part of an exhibition of photography exhibition. I think it was. And women were invited to write three words about what they love about their bodies. Tell us about that, it sounds really interesting.
Sharena: Yeah, it was an amazing project to be part of it's Body Talk. The last exhibition of that was just before lock down started. it feels like a world away now. It was an amazing project. So Shy the photographer, she took images of ladies, of how they naturally just wanted to be, stand, how they wanted to just see themselves, how they wanted us to see them.
And each lady gave three words and then them three words I compiled into a poem. Shy took these incredible images and I created a poetry piece, which was then performed at the exhibition with an amazing dancer. She's called Sophie. She was absolutely incredible. She just synced to my words and to create this beautiful dance to my poem.
Lisa-Marie: And what else do you write about? it's your life and your story that informs your poetry, but Julie, hello, Julie. I'm sure she'll listen to this at some point, said that you write about the people and issues in the city. You've got this wonderful video on your website of people, sort of thanking you for your poetry and saying a few words. And Julie said that you write about the people and issues in the city as well as your personal life. So would you share some of the projects you've been involved in? I think homelessness and International Women's Day.
Sharena: Yeah. I think a lot is to do with around like International Women's Day. I've done a few projects with libraries where we've had like a round table event and we've created zines together and we've all compiled, maybe art work or poetry together. That was amazing because that was one of the first projects I ever did before I even started coming out as a poet. It was one of the first projects I attended at Bradford libraries for International Women's Day. And that's how I'm here today, I suppose, because I took that step of being this really shy, you know, anxious lady, of not going out or being really, really quiet.
I saw in this advertisement, I think it was on the internet somewhere and it said, we're going to gather at our local library, and I thought it’s women, I'll feel comfortable around women. I can go to this. They were like doing a call out for work. And I thought it'd be amazing to share a poem in this book, My Darkened Veil. And I shared that with them. And it was compiled into a zine and it was ever since they took that step, that I started taking more steps and yeah, and be more confident.
But that was just one of the projects, I've done a few. There was another one with them The Brick Box and we created a banner. It was in London when they did the parade with all the banners. We all compiled together a big group of women. It was just so empowering. And we created a banner that said Bradford Grows Powerful Women. That was amazing. Loved it.
Lisa-Marie: Oh, love that. And you know, you say that actually, um, we're jumping ahead in my questions, but you said there's something about Bradford women, Bradford grows powerful women, women here are strong and expressive and we are empathetic to, they are passionate about our home Bradford and our society.
It was in a Bradford Argus piece about you and your writing.
Someone sent a question in saying that there is a great sisterhood in Bradford and I would concur. So I moved up to Bradford just before the video, 2019 conference and I met the most phenomenal women. I always say there seem to be pockets of men in the cities that I go to and networks of women.
And there's this wonderful network of women in Bradford. I met Fiona and Julie, who's a legend for her community organising and activism, Michelle, and many, many others. And someone's written in and said, there is a great sisterhood in Bradford.
Who are some of the women that inspire you?
Sharena: There's absolutely so many, many amazing women, absolutely amazing, you know, and you're one of them as well, Lisa-Marie, because you know. You gave me a platform, my biggest ever platform to share my poems and my work, you know, and at that time as well, I was still very on this journey. I was still very anxious and very nervous about taking these steps that I was taking towards poetry and becoming like a public speaker I suppose, and you gave me an amazing platform and that just did wonders for my confidence and for me, and, you know, I was so nervous.
I was so nervous being around strangers and different people, but it was just like, all these women were just so embracing and so loving and strangers that became sisters. It would just like you were like in your family and it was just amazing. And yeah, I want to thank you for that, because that was an incredible opportunity for me.
And as you say, women, like Julie, she's like the mom you just crave to have. because and I've said this to so many, she's just incredible. Everyone that meets Julie just falls in love with her because she's amazing.
And then I'm also part of an interfaith group and there's a few ladies there. We have gatherings and we create things together. We do sewing and at the moment we're creating a song, which is kind of crazy, cause we've never done a song before. We're creating a song and the ladies there, so these Jenny and Shamim and they work at Touchdown in Bradford and yeah, just networking with women is just amazing, just being around women in general, it's just incredible.
Lisa-Marie: I could not agree more.
With regards to you speaking at FiLiA it was an absolute honour to have you there. I wish I'd had the time; we were all rushing around actually on the day. And there were over 800, I think, about 850 mainly women in the room and we sold out and they all got to hear your words. It was a privilege to have you there. It was.
I was going to ask if you've got a poem, that's not in your book with you, but you might not have, so it might be a bit cheeky, but I really love the Deeds Not Words. Do you have that one because that was your International Women's Day 2021? And I just love it. And I thought, well, I can be cheeky and ask her, and then I'll go onto a couple of messages from women and then we'll, we'll move on. So Deeds Not Words. Thank you Sharena.
Sharena: Deeds Not Words, right? I'm sorry. I think it's cut a little bit at the top, but I'll just carry on anyway because I've not got it.
Women
seen as the weaker sex,
too many emotions,
too many hormones,
too many feelings
women seen as either too fragile or over appealing.
We are nature’s medicine,
We spread our seeds and sprinkle life into those dandelions that you call weeds,
creating life, creating peace.
We live and breathe on this earth.
And we are the ones who bodies breathe life into one soul when they give birth,
when her body nurtures and protects the life inside,
no one ever sees the pain she's endured or the tears cried
when the morning sickness erupted every morning, noon and night, her body adapted and gave up her appetite.
She gave into the cravings that help this little life grow,
this deep embedded embryo that will eventually grow.
She was given the power to birth life.
We always seem to sacrifice our own life.
To see others thrive and blossom on their own.
Women over the generations have shown
their strength and determination
fighting for our rights with Emily Pankhurst, always the first to fight
For women's rights.
We have to keep voicing our voice
deeds not words
Roaring like lions instead of tweeting like birds,
women are more than just female.
They are deep rooted to the core, to the earth, to the ground,
the whistling and the breeze that creates its own sound.
We are fire,
the very flames reignite, that spark, that light.
We are water as pure as it falls.
We are oceans and waves.
Memories of life forgetting how quickly the days is fall into each other.
We are children of our mothers
of all women and men,
It’s us women that breeds life.
You just bring all over again.
It's women that are child bearing
Be all loving
all caring
it's women that carry on selflessly that nurture are very lands.
With arms and open hands.
And we strive for change
for equality,
for respect
despite child abuse and neglect.
And we do this for voices of women lost in silence,
women who are trapped in domestic violence.
We do this to stop rape,
to stop war,
to stop racial discrimination and so much more.
We do this for women and girls now
for the women who came before,
we will never ignore the message
and we will continue to proceed
Deeds instead of words
Lisa-Marie: Thank you. Thank you. Love it.
I remember meeting you a couple of years ago and you were really quiet. You spoke about it earlier. You sat opposite me in the cafe and I could hardly hear you speak you were so inside of yourself and you were so quiet and it's just been incredible to watch you flourish and to hear you speaking out now, I mean, it's just, it's just gorgeous and thank you for sharing your voice and your words. with us.
So Lucky. Hey, Lucky. Good. See you on here. So Lucky's a wonderful local woman. So she's put I love all poems in this book. My favourite ones are Mental Health and Let's be the Change. So Lucky, I'm going to ask you to pick one of those to ask Sharena to read. So if you think about that while I ask the next question, and then we'll ask Sharena to read Mental Health, or Let's be the Change.
If we have time, we'll get them both in, you have to pick one out those two, Lucky which one would it be?
So as you reached publication date Sharena you posted ‘a younger me would never believe who I am today’.
Who was that younger you? Why wouldn't she believe who you are?
Sharena: Yeah. I lived a sheltered life for so long. So before I took that step to go to the library that day I'd lived this - I kind of grew up like from childhood teens to about 18, it was kind of like turbulent. And then from 18 to 22 and at 22, I had my first daughter. I got pregnant with my first daughter and that's kind of like when my life changed and I was still this very shy, timid, quiet woman.
I didn't really leave my house. I just focused on motherhood and it kind of just like took me away from everything else. And I still live this really sheltered life. So like, even though I was writing poetry and things like that, I still didn't really interact with the outside world. And the little me, the younger me would never believe who I am today because I'd shy away from public speaking. I'd hide away. I'd lock myself away. I had no confidence. I was just completely the opposite of who I am today. Now I need to shut up sometimes and I do, but yeah, I'm completely the opposite of who I am.
And I think if I could, if I had a time machine to say, look, just keep going. I think had that faith inside that I would eventually be the person that I'd always dreamed to be. but I just didn't know how so it's amazing to look back and be proud of myself.
Lisa-Marie: It's wonderful to hear you saying that. So Lucky has picked Mental Health and I have to say it's such a luxury to take an hour out: It's beautiful. take an hour out with you, Sharena. Thank you. And it's such a luxury for those of us who are here this evening to just take time to stop and to listen to poetry. It's just such a wonderful, wonderful thing to be able to do. So thank you.
So for Lucky, especially for Lucky, would you mind reading Mental Health and for anyone who's got their book in front of them and they want to follow it's on page 22.
Sharena: Mental Health,
mental health has no age restrictions.
It has no laws.
It enters all homes, digging deep for its cause
It can lay dormant
silently still
until one day
When your will to move, to breathe, to look and believe
that you can make it through
or to take a step back and see value in your life.
Mental health can creep up on us at any time,
even if you're in your highest glory, when you feel alive,
it can send you crashing down in an ocean,
drowning in a skydive.
mental health attacks every thought in one's mind,
leaving it's emptiness, it's loneliness, it's feelings
So unkind
Yet no one should feel alone or suffer in silence
at the hands of this mental health violence.
Let's banish the stigma and raise our voices,
speak up and speak out.
Scream that pain and release that self-doubt
because somebody out there is ready to listen
to hold your hand and listen
to help bring back that sparkle inside you that’s missing.
recovery takes time.
we need to heal the mind.
You cannot see mental health,
even if our eyes are not blind.
We all need to take the first step to acknowledge what they're feeling.
And know you are strong enough to start this healing.
Let's start to rebuild brick by brick stone by stone.
Recovery is a process and you are not alone.
Let's dance in this amazing hope
And find the healing that helps you cope
with your mental health.
We can do this.
Lisa-Marie: Thank you. And I love it. I love the way you face things head on and your poems are they reflect the pain and the anguish.
Someone's written in and asked, has lockdown helped or hindered your writing?
Sharena: A bit of both really. So in the beginning, because I do write a lot of, I say it's dark, but it can be kind of, not always positive because I need to sometimes just get things out. So in lockdown, I found myself walking a lot. I found myself on a canal quite a lot, and I found that I was getting something from these places being outdoors in nature, and it was making me feel good.
When I was writing poetry, I wait to come home and write poems and I wanted to make other people feel good. I didn't want to put any more negativity out there because there's so much already. So I was writing lots of positive poems and, and trying to uplift people because I didn't want to start writing about if I was feeling a certain way or anything like that. I kind of like hindered that side a little bit.
This year it's kind of had a bit of a reverse effect because I've written so much positive poetry. last year I kind of suppressed how I was feeling inside and I suppressed a lot of my own emotions. I didn’t write exactly what I wanted to write, because I do put a lot of poems online and we've got to be responsible for what we put out there.
So this year I've kind of done a bit of a thing of: I’m back to writing for me again, and not just for others, because it's important to stay true to yourself. I've kind of realized there's been a bit of a balance of you can keep positive, but you've also got to be reflective on your own feelings and emotions too.
Lisa-Marie: Thank you. So Alison's asked the question: How do you manage to hold yourself together when you read your poetry? Deeds Not Words moved me to tears.
Sharena: I think because I put a lot of energy into focusing. Sometimes when I'm reading I tend to lose my focus a lot as well. And I think for me, I'm always. this sounds a bit crap, but sometimes I have this little bit of self-doubt myself. So I've put a lot of energy into just reading and in hope that people will see them positively and get something out of that.
So yeah, when it comes to my emotions, I'm very good at kind of containing them when I'm reading my poems I suppose.
Lisa-Marie: Some of them are deeply personal aren’t they.
Sharena: Yeah. I think that the very deep poems I've overcome that now. So it's like, it's like a way of, that's just going over my head. It doesn't affect me anymore. It's like I'm in a positive place or to be able to share things like that. And I have done before. I've shared really deep poems and it's encouraged other people to share their deep, emotional pain. And I get a real buzz out of that, of people being able to express that their own emotions and their truth and knowing that I've had a little bit like encouragement to support them doing that. It's just, yeah, it gives me that buzz.
Lisa-Marie: I hope that answers the question, Alison. So you've set up, I mean, this leads on very well. You set up Spoke with Laura Baldwin and Simon Pickles, and I don't understand much about it, I haven't read much about it, but what I understand is it's using poetry as a sort of therapy and sort of a continuation of what you've just been saying, a way to speak out loud. So this sounds like an exciting poem.
Sharena: Yeah. So Spoke books being like one of my dream plans, I've always wanted to be able to encourage more poets, more people, give people a platform to share their work, get out there more, go to schools and, you know, and maybe collaborate with organisations and things like that.
And it's a bit bigger than what I was just on my own. I wanted it to be a bit more bigger than me and to expand and have new voices. So I am approached Laura and Simon in January and just said, you know, I've got this idea. I'd really love to see if we can just see where we go with it. You know, let's just create Spoke, see if we can encourage other poets to get involved and, and just be a platform I suppose, for other poets.
At the moment poetry is quite big, it's growing. And I think it's because of lockdown and people have got a lot to say, and sometimes these voices that get like a little side-lined or a little hidden, or a little lost and, and I want it to use Spoke for that, for those voices that are not always given that opportunity and that platform. And just to be the voice for them and to give them a bit of a platform to get recognised, I suppose.
Lisa-Marie: Thank you. And one of the things that when we spoke to local women, one of the big things that came up for them was wanting to find a way to find their voice. And I don't want to speak on their behalf, but I get a sense of wanting to find ways to express yourself and then using your voice in order to do that.
So you do workshops as well. I'm wondering if we can, maybe, I don't know those of you on the call who are local. Maybe we could ask Sharena if she'd be up for doing a workshop with women in Portsmouth on finding their voice through poetry. What do you think Sharena, would you be up for that?
Sharena: I'd love it.
Lisa-Marie: We’ll see if we can make that happen. So how has the local community responded to your wonderful book?
Sharena: Yeah. I've had so much support. When we've done open mics and everyone speaks about She and like congratulations on She. And everyone's like, you want to get a copy of the book and they're all like, we all got copies, we’ve all got it.
They've been amazing people in Bradford have been amazing and beyond, I suppose, these people have got copies and just that incredible support. And it's been difficult as well, because it's all been via on-line. We've not been able to do like book events and things. I've had incredible support from just so many people.
Lisa-Marie: The local mayor, the Bradford Mayor said that you had a gift of authenticity. I really like that.
Sharena: Oh, the Mayor, Yeah. she's an amazing woman. She invited me to another, International Women's Day, but it was like, we all have to wear really fancy hats. And she asked me to perform at her event and it was a very posh event you know, I felt really out of my comfort zone. She was just like ‘come on, come and sit next to me’ And just so loving. A lady there that I've never met before were just so loving and an amazing lady that she is.
Lisa-Marie: You got a lot of incredible women in Bradford and in Portsmouth too, actually, it's been an honour to link in with some of the networks here.
I'll ask you for another poem. And I feel very fortunate that I get to pick some of these programs. I'm very lucky, indeed. So She is a Warrior. There’s a theme here. Page 23, for those of you who are following, if you wouldn't mind, She is a Warrior. This is one of my absolute favourites.
Sharena:
She is a warrior,
a flame of fire,
a piece of art,
everyone desired a piece of her heart.
She was a wanted woman
and she wanted no man.
She was rebellious and never stuck to no plan,
a real change maker,
tough as iron steel.
Even if she didn't allow her pain to heal,
she was fierce and would never back down
to anyone who tried to knock off her crown.
She's chaotic in her own beautiful way
her face was something that should have been on display
beauty that concealed her soul from her painful past,
born and wanted and seen as the outcast
yet she never let it show.
She planted her pain and watched her flowers grow.
Heather.
She grew amongst fields, not swamped in mildew
Painted landscapes and Highlands and lavender dew
She radiated power
electrical waves. She was a wild strength.
She was the brave.
She took on the world and stood alone
in a world she was never accepted on her own
a fighter, a warrior slayed her demons on the battle ground
with her bare hands and no shield.
She is my warrior.
Her strength is now mine.
As the wind blows passing down a line.
I'll always remember her wars and battle scars.
As she aligned the hearts and moons and stars.
Only the bravest. She fought on
decades later and still holding on
praying for my own strength to keep me strong
for her one day.
Lisa-Marie: Thank you.
Alison, I wonder what feelings that brought up for you. so Julie, we've mentioned a few times, this legend grassroots community activist, she says, she, meaning Sharena, made me as a working class woman who never really went to school or read that much, very interested in poetry and you yourself talk about how you left school very, very early. So what would you say to women listening today and later on the podcast to perhaps encourage them to think about where poetry might fit for them?
Sharena: I think poetry is just a great way of expressing. It's a great way of getting in touch with yourself. It's a great way of finding your own voice and, and using that voice that may help other people find their voice. I think it's like a ripple effect. it's just finding that moment. Sometimes it can take that braveness, that bit of that on, if you just need to just go for it and just sometimes just pouring your heart out onto a piece of paper. Sometimes I'm a bit of a dream and I love going on walks and just looking at the sky and I think poetry is very linked to yourself. it's finding your art in your soul and inner emotions and taking time for yourself. And, and I think once you do, you kind of connect to yourself more deeply as well, and you kind of find your own path, which has taken me so many places I never knew existed in so many places that I never believed I could ever achieve.
And I just think it starts with expressing yourself and poetry just naturally flows and it just leads you and takes you places that I never thought I'd be at.
Lisa-Marie: And I wonder, I'm going to ask you another question. That's been sent him in the meantime.
I wonder asking the women who are listening now, if you wouldn't mind writing in the chat, do you write poetry? Do you write, I know at least one of you as a writer, would you like to write poetry or would you like to you keep a diary? how do you express yourself through the written word?
Or would you like to?
So someone's written in and said on Instagram, you use beautiful imagery. Is it important that the visual is as beautiful as the word?
Sharena: So I kind of went for a bit of a stage of using, I like to bring the words to life. Art and poetry can kind of go hand in hand and it's nice to have that kind of imagery with it as well. I now tend to use a lot of my own images.
So like when I go for walks and I take pictures, I kind of like write my words over the pictures. I think any collaboration with art forms are always beautiful to use.
Lisa-Marie: Alison's written in and said: tears, rolling down my cheeks again. Thank you so much for the release.
That must be satisfying as a poet to hear women's visceral responses to your words.
Sharena: Yeah, I can't describe it, but it's just very, it's very heart-warming and I'm just glad that people can connect and that the emotion comes. It's drawn from them from my words. Yeah.
Lisa-Marie: Alison, I wonder if there's a favourite poem that you'd like Sharena to read. So let me just have a look. Let's be the Change. So that's page 66.
Alison, if you've got a favourite one as well and do write it, and we'll see if we can fit that in quickly before the end.
Sharena:
let's get a change,
language connects us all.
It starts with human communication,
deep conversations, connecting organizations.
It starts with words,
words, and expression,
and how first-time impressions are so important.
How listening is the key
to change in the past and recreating
a new mental health legacy
it starts with empathy,
the first source of connection
of building relationships for new directions,
making a difference,
not just a new system,
it's time to listen
and find solutions
a new evolution
planting the seeds of new beginnings
and being that first point of contact
when people are drowning, not swimming,
trying to reach the shore
Not falling nor sinking or feeling ignored.
Mental health is an illness,
an invisible sickness of the mind, body and soul.
When you as a person and not fully in control of how you feel
and any cry for help is a cry to heal.
It's these long waiting lists, waiting times to be assessed
that delayed appointment that leads to
crisis.
It's about branching all the roots and linking networks together.
So the trees you create, can we stand any change in the weather?
Seasons change, just like our mental wellbeing
and mental health is not all seeing.
recovery takes time when you're trying to heal the mind.
It starts with simplifying points of contact
and making services easier to find.
It starts with people seen as people,
human interaction, not clinical
seen as visible
being recognized as a priority
and looked beyond an image visually.
Being heard
it starts with practitioners, keeping their word,
not repeating the old same patterns.
Let's not let that happen.
And in this room is where it starts
using your knowledge and experience.
But thinking with your hearts
today is where change starts.
Lisa-Marie: Thank you. So there's the message at the end of the book, very profound actually and I’m sure women will relate to your present self for surviving. And you say with your heart and soul intact full of passion and empathy for others, how important is it to take time to appreciate ourselves and our work.
And I'm asking this specifically for a couple of women that I know who are listening right now.
Sharena: It's really important. We devalue ourselves so much in things that we do in, you know, in everyday things that we do. It's so important to take that time out, to appreciate everything that we do.
You know, the littlest things from like sometimes, I hear people saying, I haven't got much to do today and they're looking after their children and then they're going to school and they're doing this. And then I'm like, how have you not got much to do? You know, you are doing so much.
And you know, like yesterday, Sunday I said, today, I'm going to have a nice chilled day. I'm not doing much, but my whole day from 8 o’clock after cooking, cleaning, and you know, constantly going round the house. It was eight o'clock and it's like, you know, I've done loads. And sometimes we fail to appreciate ourselves. We fail to appreciate our work. And it's really important because self-belief and love comes from us first. And we need to start acknowledging that, you know, we're amazing human beings and you've got to give yourself that love. If you show love to others or you show love to children, I show love to your parents or your family. We've got to give ourselves that same love as well, and that same time and appreciate ourselves and just value of ourselves more, and stop taking ourselves for granted because we wouldn’t do that to somebody else.
Lisa-Marie: Yeah. I think this is a particularly important message for women.
So a couple of quick questions and then we'll move on to the final poem or poems. Have you found peace?
Sharena: I have, I have, I think poetry has been my biggest cure and it's been my biggest release to be able to find that peace to give me my voice and to show me that I'm human and vulnerability is not a weakness, vulnerability is a strength and I'm so glad I've learnt that
I'm so glad. I think as a kid we've got so much going on, but as an adult, I just loved being an adult. I love being at this age and knowing that I have full control of myself and it's okay to have ups and downs. Sometimes life might not be perfect, but we're human and we just got to go over them pebble stones and just keep going. We’re strong enough.
Lisa-Marie: We certainly are, especially together, again, coming back to the networks of women in Bradford, in Portsmouth and elsewhere and globally. We certainly are strong enough without a doubt. Where can we find out more about future events and books?
Sharena: Yes. I think if you follow me on any of my social media links, I think that being put in the chat as well, but my website is www.Sharenaleesatti.com and I'm on like Facebook. Same if you just search my name and Instagram and Twitter. I keep them all up to date on what's going on and where I'm going next year.
Lisa-Marie: We'll send those links out to everybody. So Alison has said, ‘can I be cheeky and ask Sharena to choose one, please?
Sharena: So yeah, this is probably a nice one to leave in as well. I’m a nature geek and I love nature and it makes me feel amazing. So this poem is called ‘It's more than nature for me’ and it's on page 83.
It's more than nature for me.
It's not just nature.
It's more than green leaves weaved into branches.
It's more than protruding vines that climb about along the bark of the tree,
it's more than what the eye can see
more than the whispers of grass that brush past your skin,
leaving its delicate flicker
In your memory.
It's touch
that prickles as much
leaving its imprint
tattooed in your mind.
It's more than nature
that I find draws me closer,
draws me into this whirlwind of peace.
I drown in its heavenly scent
in its sweet silence.
When my mind is exercised by nature's guidance,
it's more than just being outdoors,
where the mind explores the universe on earth
with a sky that swirls into a canvas of blue and grey,
leaving a ray of summer silk
breaking through the clouds.
It's my place away from the crowds.
It's more than nature.
It stimulates my behaviour.
It releases something inside me
that connects me more than a sun is connected to the trees.
It's more than nature for me.
Lisa-Marie: Thank you, And I'll be really cheeky cause I'm going to fit in in another one.
I couldn't decide between asking you to finish on Indestructible, which is page 74, because I just love a couple of lines in there and I made a promise to myself that I would never allow anyone again, to fuck with me because I am indestructible. Well, I love that I'm going to get that line in because I actually adore it.
And then I'm going to say, thank you ever so much, but for just being here and for giving us this time and space to listen to your words, I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you. So, so much. And I'm going to ask you in the last two minutes to finish with another one of my favourites, which is Thank You. And that's on page 45.
Thanks everybody for joining us this evening. Thank you so so much.
Sharena: Thank you everybody for your kind words and thank you Lisa-Marie, for having me here tonight.
This is Thank You.
Thank you for fuelling my ammunition with your systematic critique
I don't write to please others.
It's my own technique.
I write for me
to release this inner energy that's brewing inside of me.
That's reaching to the light.
That's craving to be free.
Thank you for showing me that I am special.
I can hold my tongue
when I haven't even begun to express how I feel
and I didn't reveal how much.
People here demotivate us
What is the need to knock others down?
Who wants to succeed at picking themselves off the ground?
Thank you for showing me the person I never want to be
with your judgmental expectation
I never strive for perfection,
and that's okay with me.
you will not suppress my creativity,
but I am living and breathing because of writing my poetry.
Lisa-Marie: Lots of love Sharena. Thank you so so much.
And can't wait to come back up north and meet up again. Maybe we'll go back to that same old cafe. just let us know when you've got an event going on and we'll do our best to attend and thank you. And I cannot wait to see and hear your poetry and coming years. I really can't.