Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
A chronological collection of poems built from the documented childhood of Sam, a care experienced person.
Long before I could tell the story of my childhood, other people were writing it down. They recorded where | lived, how I behaved, who I saw and whether I seemed to be settling in. My name travelled between houses in sentences I would not read until I was an adult.
When I began reading my care file, I found things I remembered and things I was learning about myself for the first time. There were dates for endings I had never understood. There were small details that brought whole rooms back. Sometimes I recognised the boy immediately.
Sometimes I wanted to ask the person holding the pen to look at him again.
Being written about is a strange way to inherit your childhood. You can discover what everyone thought was happening without finding out who explained it to you. You can read that you were doing well and remember how hard you were working to make it look that way. You can find your own words, briefly, inside somebody else's account.
These poems began in those moments. I wanted to stay with a sentence after the report had moved on, to ask what happened before the behaviour, or what a child might have needed after the meeting ended.
Alongside the records are my memories, including things nobody wrote down. There are gaps in both.
Where I cannot remember, I do not want a convincing line to stand in for knowing.
The ages matter. A difficult sentence reads differently when you remember that the person inside it is six.
Moving through the years also lets me see what followed me from one house to another, even when the people writing the next report had changed.
There is hurt here, and anger. There is also humour, affection and the ordinary kindness I still remember.
Some people made room for me. Some kept making room long after it was their job. I want them here too, because they belong to the same childhood.
I cannot go back and give that boy the words he needed then. I can give him room on these pages.
Room to be frightened, funny, unfair, hopeful, and still worth staying for. Room to say what living through it felt like.
The file wrote about me. Now it's my time to write back.
A chronological collection of poems built from the documented childhood of Sam, a care experienced person.
Long before I could tell the story of my childhood, other people were writing it down. They recorded where | lived, how I behaved, who I saw and whether I seemed to be settling in. My name travelled between houses in sentences I would not read until I was an adult.
When I began reading my care file, I found things I remembered and things I was learning about myself for the first time. There were dates for endings I had never understood. There were small details that brought whole rooms back. Sometimes I recognised the boy immediately.
Sometimes I wanted to ask the person holding the pen to look at him again.
Being written about is a strange way to inherit your childhood. You can discover what everyone thought was happening without finding out who explained it to you. You can read that you were doing well and remember how hard you were working to make it look that way. You can find your own words, briefly, inside somebody else's account.
These poems began in those moments. I wanted to stay with a sentence after the report had moved on, to ask what happened before the behaviour, or what a child might have needed after the meeting ended.
Alongside the records are my memories, including things nobody wrote down. There are gaps in both.
Where I cannot remember, I do not want a convincing line to stand in for knowing.
The ages matter. A difficult sentence reads differently when you remember that the person inside it is six.
Moving through the years also lets me see what followed me from one house to another, even when the people writing the next report had changed.
There is hurt here, and anger. There is also humour, affection and the ordinary kindness I still remember.
Some people made room for me. Some kept making room long after it was their job. I want them here too, because they belong to the same childhood.
I cannot go back and give that boy the words he needed then. I can give him room on these pages.
Room to be frightened, funny, unfair, hopeful, and still worth staying for. Room to say what living through it felt like.
The file wrote about me. Now it's my time to write back.