Welcome back to another blog post by Carer activist, poet and author Matthew McKenzie. As you can guess by most of my post off this site, I raise awareness of those providing unpaid care to someone.
Even though I have written a few books containing poems about the caring role. There will be times I will just come out with the odd poem due to spark of creativitiy. Here is my latest poem to raise awareness of caring for someone living with long term illness. I hope you like it, but if you dont then I hope it provides plenty of discussion.
I am always interested in what people think of my new poem. I am sure to place these poems in another book at a later date. Feel free to comment either in the video or my YouTube channel.
Here is a new blog post from carer activist Matthew McKenzie. I write about the challenges, roles and journeys of those caring for someone. Usually the experience of caring for someone with mental health challenges or someone living with cancer.
However, I find that writing is not enough when trying to connect with others. I find poetry a great way of sharing experiences, creativity and understanding.
There can be challenges of using creativity to explain the experiences of caring. It all becomes worth while in the performance, even if things do not go as expected.
Each person finds the poem will mean something different to them. Just as no carer’s journey is the same, this can be included as to how poems can mean something different.
In order to promote the power of poetry, I have made a short video of my ideas, which you can see below.
In life, whatever we experience will eventually pass and things move so fast that we are left wondering what it was all about. If we can leave something behind, express our experiences, share our thoughts of our existance then we can for a brief moment connect with others.
Welcome back to a quick update from Carer activist, author and poet Matthew McKenzie. This update is from an event I performed at which was held over the Chestnut Community centre over at Haringey. The event was a spoken word event, which was part of Haringey Service User and Carer Forum.
A quick note is you can actually download poems and listen to songs if you scroll to the end of my update of the spoken word event.
The Haringey Service User and Carer Forum aims to provide a place for past and present service users and carers to learn about new developments and to provide feedback on services.
The forum provides an opportunity for people to discuss their experiences and to share views with staff so that their ideas can help to influence the way services operate. This meeting is organised by Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust.
Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust provides integrated mental health services in Barnet, Enfield and Haringey, and also provides community health services in Enfield. They look after people’s mental and physical health in hospitals or in the community, and provide a range of mental health services for young people and adults.
So for the 8th of July, I attended the spoken word event hosted by Martin Weegmann who is a Clinical Psychologist & Group Analyst at the mental health trust. We were joined by many who also performed, songs, spoken word, poetry and art.
Some of the art presented at the event, I managed to take some pictures. This was in order to help promote the work by Nicola Newman
You can view more of Nicola’s art at her Instagram page.
I was joined by Jo Lambert who does poetry to help express mental wellbeing, mental health experiences and also carer experiences. Jo and myself have a poetry circle to help promote carer awareness. You can watch our performance off my YouTube Channel.
We also heard excellent poems, songs and spoken word performed by others at the event. Obviously I could not record them, but I spoke to a few who loved to have their work shared off my blog site.
A number of songs were performed by Victoria Lamb who has her songs hosted off her soundcloud page, which is linked below.
I enjoyed being part of this excellent group that has a focus of community empowerment.
I often try attend the SU forum when I can as Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust are supportive of my work engaging with carers. I look forward to the next spoken word event.
You can also check out many of the poetry from those with lived experience from the following book which can be viewed below.
I have great news regarding my poetry projects. I have now published the special edition of the poetry book of mental health caring.
The audiobook provides poems about the unpaid caring role, quite a few poems focus on what it is like to provide care for someone suffering mental illness.
This audiobook not only has the audio version of some of my older carer poems, but also contributions from unpaid carers around the country. Close to 3 hours of poems.
Thanks to the many carer centres supporting the project.
You can purchase the audiobook via Google Play for £2.40. Here is the screenshot below, where you can listen from your computer, or play the audiobook from your phone or tablet.
The audiobook contains over 100 poems and can be purchases from the link below.
Here is my latest blog post from my carers website. This site focuses on events, thoughts and awareness of unpaid carers, especially those who care for someone with mental illness or suffering through cancer.
For Carers Week 2024, I was back over at the Maudsley site based in the London borough of Southwark. South London & Maudsely were doing a special follow up event from their Carers conference held last year for 2023. During the conference, many carers contributed to a number of poems which has led to the a carer poetry book.
The carer poetry book event took place over at Maudsleys NHS training and events centre, The Ortus.
Over the years, I have attended many mental health and carer events, including attending meetings and engagement events. It was with great pleasure to attend a poetry book launch which was driven by carers from the boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Croydon.
The event was opened by Gabrielle Richards who is the Head of Inclusion, Recover and Professional Head of Occupational Therapy and Allied Health Professionals at South London & Maudsley. Gabrielle also oversees Triangle of Care at the NHS mental health trust.
Gabrielle was joined by carer Faith Smith and Ann Morgan who led on the ideas for poetry inclusion from carers who attended the Family and Carers listening event
Faith and Ann read a number of poems while commenting on the poetry books development. We also heard from Rob Frowen winner of the 2017 Carer of the Year Award and Chair of Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust Service User and Carer Council.
You can also view Ann reading a poem below.
A large number of carers also took turns to read some poems including carer advocate Brenda.
We were also joined by Carer and poet Jo Lambet and myself who also promoted the importance of poetry and how carers can connect and tell their experiences through creativity. Later on during the event, I spoke about the importance of poetry and how this can help carers relate to each other while exploring their experiences of caring and sharing this with others.
I also did a spoken word section from the poetry book I released in 2023, which is being edited into a new edition to include poems from unpaid carers around the country
You can view the section of myself and Jo performing some poetry and my talk about the importance of including carers to give space to poems.
I enjoyed the carer poetry book launch event and hope the book can make history or at least show how carers over in South London can be included to experess their exprience of care via poetry.
Continuing on the Black History Month focus. I have added another post due to receiving my poem being read wonderfully by carer Annette Davis.
Recently there was a Black History Month event held over at South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. I was due to attend, but had other commitments. It was a shame, since I attended the previous Black History month event at SLaM NHS. The event included food, music, stalls and poetry.
Annette Davis a carer who I have known a very long time is the Chair of the PCREF Service Users and Carers Group at our local mental health trust.
She is very dedicated to her role and champions working together with health services. Annette has her own ethnic carer group over in Southwark and at times we do collaborate. I was astounded by Annette’s performance of my poem and had to a video of her reading my Black History month poem shown below.
Our History to Celebrate – Poem by Matthew McKenzie read by Annette Davis.
Carers week 2023 approaches. When you start your journey providing unpaid care it can be a long journey. You might start out caring for someone with cancer, mental illness or physical health difficulties. No matter how you see it, you will starting out on a journey.
As an author and poet, I have written extensively on the journey I have travelled. I hae also written about the path where many other unpaid carers will have to walk.
It helps when former or veteran carers help guide others down that road. We need to be aware that not all carer journeys are the same, but it helps if we identify and value each other.
Below is a poem taken from my book “The Poetry book of mental health caring”. You can check out that book at the end of this blog post. I do actually have some podcasts of the poems off my website.
This poem “The Long Road” talks about how a former carer looks back down the road they have travelled. They see new people beginning their caring journey. The stop and tell those carers about that journey. This is a peer carer task, but it is so important vulnerable groups look out for each other.
Welcome back to another carer blog by Matthew McKenzie
It has been a while since I did an event review. To be honest I ought to be attending a lot more events, especially things to do with mental health awareness, carer awareness or even book conferences related to my content.
Well you are just in luck, I recently was a special guest poet at the ‘Come Rhyme with me’ series of creative writting workshops. These workshops are hosted by award winning poet Michael Groce. The event was brought together by Voluntary Action Kingston.
There often can be fast paced changes in the community, some positive and some bringing changes which causes people to be isolated. Ethnic communities can often feel isolated, so it helps that there are ways to help people use their voice in ways that are powerful.
I have always found poetry to be powerful. The creative writing workshops are held in the Cambridge Estate over in the London Borough of Kingston. I found at the event all were welcomed and the community in the borough of Kingston are talented and passionate about their experiences.
You can see my poem from the video below.
If you are from the borough of Kingston, you can book on the event below.
Welcome readers and those who care for someone. As you might already know, not only am I an author raising awareness of carers, but I am also a poet. I find poetry an excellent way to raise awareness of social causes. A good poem can reach the hearts and minds of those trying to understand caring.
I am sure many out there are aware that carers can often remain hidden. The world of unpaid care is often carried out behind closed doors. This might not be a problem, but when the role of caring becomes stressful then we need raise awareness of the plight of unpaid carers.
I feel even when someone becomes uninvolved in caring for someone close to them, they are still in the background somewhere inquiring about the person health and wellbeing. I feel a lot of carers can be a link in that chain.
So in my 3rd book on using poetry to raise awareness of those caring for someone with mental illness, I wrote a poem called “The Hidden Link”.
Feel free to listen to the poem below. I would love to get people’s views on what they think about the poem.
You can also get my poetry book from the Amazon link below.
Hello visitors and those providing care or caregiving to someone close. Here is another carer awareness blog from Matthew Mckenzie, carer activist, poet and author from Lewisham.
This blog is about Carers Lewisham Hub’s culture day. Carer centres are a vital part of providing support and services for those giving unpaid care. Carers Lewisham fights hard to identify carers, advocate for them and give as much support as possible.
I often visit the carers centre for their forums and support groups. On the 28th of July 2022, since the borough of Lewisham was the borough of culture. Carers Lewisham was hosting their culture day at their carers centre. A list of activities, networking and events was provided for carers who wanted to feel valued.
We had the game room and Raffle ticket event. Massage for those who have stress, aches and pains. Creative art sessions for those wanting to be……well creative. We also had laughter workshop, book readings and also my poetry reading (more on that later.)
I think most of all, carers who came along to the event wanted to network with others. They wanted to reduce isolation and link up with carers, staff and advocate to get support, information and to feel valued.
Since my poetry book “The Poetry book of mental health caring” was released in July 2022. Carers Lewisham was kind enough to offer me a poetry workshop. It is well known that over time, poetry can contribute to forms of culture. Most if not all my poems focus on the aspect of the caring experience. The poems look to raise the awareness of those providing mental health care. That means providing unpaid care to someone suffering mental illness.
At the book reading and poetry workshop, we had other carers reading from their poems which they have developed. Tess read a wonderful poem and also Brenda.
I ran my workshop by reading a poem and then asking others to also choose a poem to read. We then reflected on the meaning and definitions of those poems. You can see the video of my poetry workshop below.
A Caring Mind 