||| Wendy Young Poetry |||

Wendy Young is a poet/performer who cut her teeth with Survivors Poetry, performing widely in London and beyond, at festivals including Shuffle, and Liberty. She has been published in South Bank Poetry, Anomalie Magazine, I am not a Silent Poet, Poetry Express, Militant Thistles, Disability Arts Online (DAO – writes reviews, also performed and facilitated workshops as part of daisyfest). Facilitated poetry workshop at Ashford Place London. Her publications include: ‘Living with Ghosts’ (Natterjack Poetry 2015), ‘Ooetry’ (William Cornelius Harris Publishing/London Poetry 2015) and 'The Dream of Somewhere Else' Survivors Press (2016).

She is moved to write through anger at injustice such as the news of the development of Soho, one Sunday morning raging in dressing gown and slippers, grooming gangs, homeless and destitute people, interesting stories of love, loss, the dramas of relationships, and through past travels and times abroad. It could be a sudden burst of desperation and has written poetry in many forms from rhyme like Right to Bite 'I wish I'd been born at the bottom of the sea, nobody there to bother me' (driven to near madness working in the housing department of Brent Council) to rap inspired work for instance when she 'saw Jay Z on the BBC – he’s got 99 problems – now he’s got me’ (which is now a recorded track with the late, great Maggie Swampwino).

As for many London adoptees her life is delineated by the before and after of arrival in the great metropolis. Evocative aromas of the nearby canal (preferably the murky bits), walking in graveyards, music, excessive cookery programmes, smoking, Hammer Horror and life’s horrors. Past hotel work in London and Amsterdam led to rites of passages and back alleys – red light bars, prostitutes, gangsters and faux champagne giving added depth to the tag ‘Misery with Oomph’ and L’esprit de scallywag! Turning past traumas into inspired work, Wendy writes to fulfil what’s missing; performs to feel alive; is always learning and feels writing can heal – after all it’s all some of us have.