“Hello. My name is Wendy and I write and perform poetry that could be described as ‘misery with oomph’.  Poetry saved me and to perform live makes me feel alive and cutting my teeth via City Lit (the late Julia Casterton) and Survivors Poetry has been life affirming.  Anger, sadness, badness,boredom, frustration and most everything fuels me to express myself through writing and to performing is an honour.  Having  moved to London more than half my life ago and lived in W6, W10 and NW6 NW10 – this is my home. Kamitan Arts is now part of my heart.” – Wendy Young

Carrying her dreams in two cheap suitcases
Like Willy Loman
A crooked carriage
Gazing the trodden street
Til she’s at the  top
Now she’s looking up
Eyes bright to sky
Of limitless possibility..........

Saviour City

Thank You London
For saving this wreck
For giving me the chance to resurrect
For saving this nondescript with nothing but baggage
For giving me a purpose – rebuilding the damage
Thank you tradition but thank God for the M1
Thank you National Express bringing me home
For the chance to shed these hardened skins – recapture youth at 22
For old streets – some paved with gum that is old
For making me see that all are gold
For leading me to the truth
For giving me diversity
For solid buildings bringing me stability
For THF hotels – thank you Mr Forte
For alternative days off – to discover Strangers Gallery
For owning the Empire in Leicester Square
For Tuesday nights in Ambres – cheap vodka and free entry
For opening these childish eyes
Forgiving my mistakes
For the Jubilee Gardens and the GLC
For The Smiths and The Fall concerts for free
For letting my problems fly with the wind - up Oxford Street at 3am
For Routemasters outside Hammersmith Palais
For black cabs from the Dirtbox, The Other Club and Camden Palace
For the Underground’s warmth in morning’s first carriage
Ere Soho all nighters at the Batcave, The Mud Club, Jean Pierre’s and Gossips
When I dream of leaving
Moan at overcrowding
Thank you Bakerloo guards for waking me in time
For taking me to the end of the line
For when I am tired of you – I remember how you saved me
For my sanity, for my life, for giving me a new start
Thank you London - from the bottom of my heart

War Zone

Afghan kids fired like jump leads
At explosions behind, in front, all round them
Rocked out of their cradles

Slapping her a head a little girl with 100 year eyes
Panics, screams
I recognise the fear

I am back
Nipping my skin
Pulling my hair

The volts charging through that little body
Shout and scream and thud and dream
I were a thousand mile from here

The man in charge fires the guns, plants the seed with the bombs
The little absorb the shrapnel fallout
Tearing humans from humanity

Smacking their faces
Smack dispersed to places
Far from here

Into warlords
Into their own worlds
Pacing the future in empty halls of a shattered mind

I’d only heard of Afghan coats
Afghan kid
But they cut our throats together.

(Inspired by the film Bitter Lake)