Being poor is bloody hard work. Robbing Peter and Paul to pay utility bills. Walking everywhere because you can’t afford bus or train fare. Waiting till the shops are closing to pick up food at cheaper prices. Checking the price of every tin, every packet before it goes in your shopping basket. Maxing out credit cards and always being overdrawn. Staring up at the ceiling at night, wondering how you’ll get through the next day or week, never mind the following month or year. The list goes on. And on. The worry is relentless. It doesn’t stop.
I loved to read Malorie Blackman’s books when I was a kid. Pig-Heart Boy was the book that I kept returning to. I can’t say I knew anything at all about Malorie Blackman before I read Just Sayin’. She wrote about her childhood, experiencing poverty and homelessness, and how books, and the library, gave her a retreat. She wrote about her schooling, and how a sickle cell crisis and diagnosis interrupted her first year in University. She wrote about being black, and her experiences of racism. She also wrote about her craft, how she got better at writing. It made me realise how much you need to put into writing, into actually writing and then you will get the results of getting better at it, and possibly getting published. I loved reading what Malorie Blackman had to say. I was inspired by it too. Just Sayin’ is a book that has stayed in my head in the days after I finished reading it.
As Albert Einstein is reported to have said, ‘Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.’ Who is to say that a visit to an art gallery or a museum or an opera house or a play is not the key to unlocking some child’s creativity? Who is to say that such a visit won’t be the inspiration required for a child to think bigger and beyond, and to decide, ‘I’m going to do that someday?’ Watching Hansel and Gretel in primary school made me realise that I had just as much right to the arts, all the arts, as anyone else. I could take just as much enjoyment from them as anybody else.
Poetic Insights
For those who are curious