Neglected Voices - a cycle of poems by Allan Sutherland
11 November 2011
Introduction
‘Neglected Voices’ is a work about disabled people’s experience, consisting of four sequences of transcription poems: 'Proud', 'In Memory', 'This Hearing Thing' and 'Dan Dare Braces'.
We get looked at a lot, and talked about a great deal, but we donít get listened to very much. This does not mean that we have nothing to say. Any number of stories are told about us, as poison dwarves, wicked hunchbacks, pathetic cripples, brave survivors or benefits scroungers. What the story is depends on who is doing the telling. That's why it matters that the stories about us are so rarely told by us.
This project attempts to rectify that situation by giving four disabled people the opportunity to tell their own stories.
'Neglected Voices' was created during my recent year-long residency at the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University, a research centre which has ëa particular commitment to user-led and emancipatory approaches to research and to the involvement of service users and the subjects of social and public policy in research and policy development.
The project uses the same transcription poetry technique as in my work with Paddy Masefield and Nancy Willis. That previous work was about important figures in the Disability Arts world.
These cycles of poems tell the life stories of a wider group of disabled people, drawn from the range of people involved, to a greater or lesser extent, in the Centre for Citizen Participation. They all have important and interesting stories to tell. But then so, in my experience, do all disabled people.
To read some of my thoughts about the development of transcription poetry go to www.disabilityartsonline.org/transcription-poetry
The residency was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and the application by the CCP was supported by Disability Arts Online.
Proud - by Allan Sutherland from the words of Jennifer Taylor
21 November 2011
A sequence of transcription poems
In Memory - by Allan Sutherland from the words of Catriona Grant
21 November 2011
A sequence of transcription poems
This Hearing Thing - by Allan Sutherland from the words of Wendy Bryant
21 November 2011
A sequence of transcription poems.
Dan Dare Braces - by Allan Sutherland from the words of Peter Moore
21 November 2011
A sequence of transcription poems
Transcription Poetry
21 November 2011
Allan Sutherland discusses the form of 'Transcription poetry' - as a vehicle for documenting the lives of disabled people
Comments
shelisha campbell
I AM A 30 YEAR OLD FEMALE WITH 3 KIDS I HAVE A MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM WITH SCHIZO,BIOPOLOAR, MAJOR DEPRESSION, LEARN PROBLEM AND I ENJOY WRITING POETRY I HAVE BEEN IN THE LAURINBURG EXCHANGE, I AM IN A MENTAL HEATH BOOK, I HAVE READ A ST.ANDREWS COLLEGE, I HAVE READ ON FOXY 99.1, I HAVE READ AT CHURCHES AND ON STAGE IN FRONT OF 500 PEOPLE WHEN IT WAS ALOT OF KILLING GOING ON IN LAURINBURG NC I REALLY WANT TO BE PUBLISH I FEEL THAT I CAN TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE WITH MY REAL LIFE STORY CAN SOMEONE HELP ME TO GET STARTED.
Kaite O'Reilly
This is a great project - let's try and promote it wherever we can. I've just send a link to all my friends and put the press release on my blog. Let's stop the 'Neglected Voices' being neglected now they're here in the public domain.
Jane Campbell
The voice of experience tells us so much more about other people and therefore ourselves. All humans grow by testing their understanding of the world against those of others. If disabled people never articulate their own story and their own minds, we not only lose them, but we lose something of ourselves. Neglected voices, is one of the best creative responses I have seen for a long time, to our social exclusion.
Everyone at some point in their life, will either become a disabled person or is a disabled person. If you want to prepare for life, if you want to enjoy life, then excluding our memories and understanding of the world will inevitably take away from you. Nothing about us, without us must be a fundamental principle for living an inclusive life. Neglected voices, is a brilliant way to help society understand our culture and to understand themselves better.
Alison Wilde
These stories made me think, feel and reflect on the lives and circumstances of others, reminding me of our unique differences and considerable commonalities. They brought together the strengths of both artistic and sociological imaginations, retaining a strong sense of authenticity. The poetry brims with life in all its multi-textured complexity.
The way these stories are told are redolent of the work of Woody Guthrie; not only do they demonstrate some truths about disabled people’s identities to the world, they remind us to take pride in our lives, our struggles, and our work.
Mat Fraser
The powerful, enlightening, and both joyous and sobering “Neglected Voices” joins the growing ranks of hitherto unheard points of view, visions and impressions of the World, from Disabled People. This breath of fresh air builds as each poem delivers its message and form across the pages, developing both individual and larger story arcs that resonate with anyone who reads them. This is a collection of poems that demands to be included and listened to, read and digested.
Liz Crow
Is it documentary? Is it storytelling? Is it poetry? Yes! What Neglected Voices has
succeeded in doing is representing the lives of a small group of disabled people in a way that their voices, personalities and experiences ring from the page.
Because Allan Sutherland is able to retain the rhythm and flow of the voice in his poetry, we build an emotional connection with the teller and find an aliveness to their recollections that is so often missing from traditional representations. Sutherland is developing a very interesting new narrative approach which is an immensely valuable contribution to recording the lives of marginalised communities and I hope this is a body of work and a methodology that he will be able to continue to build on.
Anat Greenstein
Wow!!!! This is really inspiring and moving. Thank you very much for sharing this. Can I please read your methodology paper? I find it very relevant to my research and particularly for a project I did with school students in which I used comic strips as a form of data representation and analysis.
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