Description

By Anna Louise

ISBN: 978-1-78382-081-8
Published: 2014
Pages: 36
Key Themes: Mental Health, Poetry, Mental Illness, Schizophrenia

Description

The Purple was already there is the story of Annas life after becoming ill as a teenager and her journey through the mental health system. It is a collection of poems, originally written from her twenties onwards, within the psychiatric maze, woven into a tale of unrequited love, obsession and a kind of bleakness that ensues from mental illness. It also concerns her experience of how institutions came to own her and the effects of being socially bullied and scorned.

About the Author

Anna was born in 1971 in Newcastle. She became mentally ill at fifteen and was diagnosed with schizophrenia at sixteen. At that time, the psychiatrist had told her she would never recover. She has had reoccurring visits to hospital and has experienced madness in the community.

Anna joined the Devon River Poets at twenty-two and performed poetry with The Female Fighter Pilots from Venus. She has already been published under the umbrella of the Devon River Poets in two anthologies. A Marvellous Collection of Birds 1994 and Precise Angles of Light 1998, introduced by Selima Hill. Both published by White Box.

Anna has facilitated creative writing groups for other mentally ill people. She has also been involved in her local recovery movement for many years including campaigning with MIND, a local Respect Campaign, and many other events encouraging positive change, acceptance of mentally ill people and promotion of systems and methods that enhance recovery and well-being.

Her dream is to be published and have her voice heard and accepted within the community. Writing plays an important role in the goodness of the grief of falling and saved her from self-destruction.