Preventing Suicide one poem at a time

Today is Suicide Prevention Day. You might think, What’s that got to do with Poetry?

Quite a bit it turns out, for poet Jeremy Dixon, who recently won the Wales Book of the Year Poetry award.

We have a flash sale today only 50% off with the code PREVENT50 on print book from our webshop and audio or ebook from our e-store

Jeremy’s collection A Voice Coming from Then charts the homophobic bullying he experienced as a teenager and his subsequent suicide attempt, and recovery forging an identity for himself that rejected the negative image he had forced on him by the bullies. Along the way it is heartbreaking and hilarious and joyful.

Reading the poems in manuscript when Jeremy first submitted the collection I was sobbing uncontrollably within pages.

This is the precise response I sent to Jeremy whilst still mopping my tears.

Content warning notwithstanding, you may have to wait a while for a coherent answer, I’m already in tears and I’ve only got to Anne Sexton. Not feeling strong enough for this right now, but if they are all like this, it’s going to be an emphatic YES.

and not much later the same day

And then I had to go back and finish, and of COURSE it’s YES.

I don’t often weep over a MS, but as I know Jeremy a bit from publishing him before and meeting at events, it was probably tougher than reading these from a stranger. Which brings me to the vexed question of Content Warnings.

Jeremy has this to say on the subject in the introduction:

// a note on content warnings
For me content warnings really work. If I am not prepared then sometimes just seeing the word ‘suicide’ has an emotional effect.

And I get it, I really do, I have had a complete melt down from authors sending me (sometimes unsolicited, grrr) graphic distressing material without warning. Some of that is outrage that they think they can do that, at least in a bookshop you’ve chosen to pick the book up, in a MS there’s nothing to indicate what’s there until it’s too late. And I don’t voluntarily read things that are going to upset me, real life is quite sufficient, thanks. BUT it means I probably won’t pick up a book with a content warning on the cover. And other people may think twice too.

When we were recording the audiobook (voiced by the MAGNIFICENT Nigel Pilkington) we cautioned both Nigel and our sound engineer, Jess, that it was potentially an emotional listen, and Jess in particular just shrugged, and said ‘powerful, isn’t it,’ because we had warned her.

The book is peppered with statistics and there are resources at the end.

just one accepting adult
in a LGBTQ+ young person’s life
can reduce the risk
of suicide by 40%

 

 The Trevor Project, 2019

Jeremy says:

I wanted to be make the book as safe as possible. So as part of that I decided on this, the structure of the poems as couplets so that there would be nothing about the structure or the forms of the poems that would throw people, and then tied to that was the use of statistics to give a kind of grounding to give an overview, to give it a different voice, a research voice, but they were still formatted in the same way as poems so that they’re like tiny, tiny little poems themselves.

Homophobia, bullying, cruelty, suicide attempts… hard, hard things to experience, hard to write about, but in Jeremy’s careful, compassionate hands, emotional, but rewarding, cathartic and inspiring.

As Andy Welch one of the judges of the Wales Book of the Year said during the announcement on Radio Wales,

It just took me aback completely. It was so shocking, but something so beautiful to come out of it.

And Jeremy at the launch of the book said this:

I wonder if [writng the book] is another form of  potential protection… in some ways, it’s been a very healing process… once the poem’s written, and especially when it’s in a book,  there’s  another distancing. I think for me this relates to the book as an object. It’s like everything is contained in that book now, so I don’t need to carry it around with me anymore.

So if, like me, you shy away from a content warning, be encouraged, this is a generous kindly book that doesn’t want to steep you in trauma, it wants to share recovery and particular joy of looking back at a tough time and realising it really is the past, and that by writing about that past we can change our future.

Resources:

http://www.thecalmzone.net
The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) aims to prevent male suicide in the UK.

http://www.tcf.org.uk
The Compassionate Friends offers many different kinds of support for bereaved families.

http://www.cruse.org.uk
CRUSE Bereavement Care provides support
and counselling to those suffering from grief.

http://www.ditchthelabel.org
An international anti-bullying charity.

http://www.hafal.org
Welsh charity for people with serious mental illness and their carers.

http://www.listeningplace.org.uk
Help for those who feel life is not worth living.

http://www.maytree.org.uk
Offers suicidal adults free short-term stays in a safe and caring environment.

http://www.papyrus-uk.org
Offers support and advice to young people at risk of suicide.

http://www.samaritans.org
Dedicated to reducing feelings of isolation and disconnection that can
lead to suicide.

http://www.uk-sobs.org.uk
The Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide (SOBS) supports all those bereaved or affected by suicide.

http://www.TheTrevorProject.org
The world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organisation for LGBTQ+ youth.

Happy Birthday, A Voice Coming From Then!

Today is exactly one year since we published A Voice Coming From Then by Jeremy Dixon. Largely written and edited during lockdown, A Voice Coming From Then recently won the English-language Poetry award at the Wales Book of the Year 2022 and this has given us another chance to celebrate Jeremy and his extraordinary collection in real life.

We’re building an A Voice Coming From Then tour of Wales this Autumn, with events already planned at several libraries, independent bookshops and Waterstones stores across Wales this October and November.

If you run a bookshop, library, arts venue or poetry night, then please get in touch with us on outreach@arachnepress.com and let us know if you’d be interested in hosting an event with Jeremy Dixon as a part of this tour.

If you’re in Wales (or close by) and would like to see Jeremy reading from A Voice Coming From Then, please keep an eye on our blog and social media channels for the event dates and locations – coming soon!

For now, we are celebrating A Voice Coming From Then‘s book birthday with an online offer: buy a copy of the print book from our webshop and we’ll send you a code for 50% off the ebook or audiobook, which is beautifully narrated by Nigel Pilkington.

A Voice Coming From Then starts with Jeremy Dixon’s teenage suicide attempt and expands to encompass themes of bullying, queerphobia, acceptance and support.

As well as exploring identity, the tragic effects of bullying and the impact of suicide, this collection also includes unexpected typography, collage, humour, magic, discotheques and frequent appearances from the Victorian demon, Spring-heeled Jack.

One of the Wales Book of the Year judges commented: “I really admire Jeremy’s ability to be so vulnerable. I felt like he just really put his heart and his whole self into the collection.” Congratulations to Jeremy on having this immensely personal and moving collection out in the world for a whole year. 

Jolabokaflod: a book for you, a book for a friend

Our Jolabokaflod 2021 offering:  buy a second (roughly) half-price copy of the same book. Applies to any book with a cover price of £9.99 or less, until 17th December, last 2nd class posting day for Christmas.

Buy early, buy two!

The Icelandic tradition of giving books on Christmas Eve and staying up all nights reading (with optional vat of hot chocolate) is known as Jolabokaflod – literally, Yule Book Flood.

We’d like to encourage this tradition, so this year, we are offering a discount on second copies of the same book. When you order, ask for 1 copy, and add the Jolabokaflod ‘product’ for £5, and we’ll send you 2 copies. This can be used once for each full-price title you order.

For example: you order a copy of What Meets the Eye? and a copy of Words from the Brink, and you want 2 copies of each, you order 2 Jolabokaflod

Or: you buy 2 full price copies of Where We Find Ourselves, [BACK IN STOCK!] and order 2 Jolabokaflod, and we send you 4 copies.

If you would like us to send your second copy direct to its recipient, perhaps with a message, let us know.

There are undoubtedly simpler ways of doing this, but they require an upgrade of our systems and we haven’t the time or money for it.

Arachneversary: Time and Tide

Continuing our eighth anniversary celebrations, with the most recent Solstice Shorts Festival and book, Time and Tide.
Stories and poems set on and beside the sea with a strong female voice, BSL translations by Marcel Hirshman of:
Remittance, by Kilmeny MacMichael;
Arrival by Valerie Bence (with voice over by Holly Blades);
I Nearly Drownded Daddy by Vivien Jones and
Napoleon by Nick Westerman.

Plus news of the future of Solstice Shorts.

You can buy the book, in two different editions (the special is illustrated) from our Webshop

throughout August there is a discount if you apply code ARACHNEVERSARY at the checkout.

Happy LGBT History Month 2019

To celebrate LGBT history month we are publishing Jeremy Dixon‘s In Retail on the 7th February.

These poems were written on the back of till rolls and smuggled off the shop floor of a well-known pharmacy in Jeremy’s socks. They chart the absurdities of being a member of staff in retail (most of us have been there at some point), and the cultural take that being a queer poet gives to the experience.

00/13

the in-store radio is on a major seventies kick
after an advert for Snoxin anti-wrinkle serum
You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) starts

replaying a dark corner of the youth club
where I dance by myself to Sylvester
unable to resist that immaculate beat

compelled to leave the false safety
of a line of canvas chairs
failing to see what is apparent

to everyone else
watching me

punched the length of the pool table

Jeremy is launching the book in his local village hall on the outskirts of Cardiff. The very village hall where THAT youth club was held.

There’s progress for you.

Further events in Cardiff 7th March and Bristol 1st June

To mark LGBT history month we are giving you the opportunity to buy our other LGBT titles for half price when you buy In Retail. (Mosaic of Air is already half price so there’s just a small further reduction there)

In Retail + Outcome (photographic portraits by Tom Dingley)

In Retail + Mosaic of Air (short stories by Cherry Potts)

In Retail + The Dowry Blade (Fantasy Novel by Cherry Potts)

In Retail + A Gift of Rivers (Poetry by Kate Foley)

In Retail + Foraging (Poetry by Joy Howard)

In Retail + The Don’t Touch Garden (Poetry by Kate Foley)

 

#WomenVote100 at the ballot box and on offer

All three of our #WomenVote100 titles on offer for one day only, to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the first female vote going into an actual ballot box on 14th December 1918

We/She Liars League stories by Women,

Five by Five, short stories by Katy Darby, Joan Taylor-Rowan, Cassandra Passarelli, Sarah James and Helen Morris,

Vindication Poems from Sarah James, Sarah Lawson, Elinor Brooks, Jill Sharp and Anne Macaulay

Normal price £28.97 still post free in UK – you have until I get to the computer tomorrow morning!

buy now

#ComingOutDay special offer on Outcome

To celebrate Coming Out Day and the anniversary of publication of Tom Dingley’s photographic portraits Outcome we have a special offer of £5 off until Midnight tonight. head over to the shop to take advantage of this offer.

And a reminder that the last remaining SIGNED copy is up for grabs on our crowd fund

It’s #ReadABookDay let’s make it easy #Arachne5

As part of our fifth anniversary celebrations (8th Sept! Party!) we have reduced the price of our first 5 books to £5.

get them here.

bookshops – we’ve set up with our distributors NBNi that you can get these books at trade discount to sell for £5 too!

#Arachne5 special offer to UK libraries and book charities

To Celebrate our 5th Anniversary (8th September 2017) we are offering the first five books we published FREE TO BONA FIDE UK LIBRARIES or BOOK CHARITIES

 

London Lies ISBN: 978-1-909208-00-1 CONTEMPORARY
Our first Liars’ League showcase, featuring unlikely tales set in London.

 

 

 

 

Stations: Short Stories Inspired by the Overground Line

ISBN: 978-1-909208-01-8 CONTEMPORARY
A story for every station from New Cross, Crystal Palace, and West Croydon at the Southern extremes of the East London line all the way to Highbury & Islington.

 

 

 

Lovers’ Lies ISBN: 978-1-909208-02-5 CONTEMPORARY
Our second collaboration with Liars’ League, bringing the freshness, wit, imagination and passion of their authors to stories of love.

 

 

 

Weird Lies ISBN: 978-1-909208-10-0 SCI-FI/FANTASY
WINNER of the Saboteur2014 Best Anthology Award
Our third Liars’ League collaboration – more than twenty stories varying in style from tales not out of place in One Thousand and One Nights to the completely bemusing.

 

 

 

Mosaic of Air Cherry Potts ISBN: 978-1-909208-03-2

FANTASY/SCI-FI/ CONTEMPORARY
Sixteen short stories from a lesbian perspective.

 

If you’ve not tried our work before here’s your chance to explore.
Libraries just pay delivery, charities completely free contact us
Other special offers on back-list titles direct from us for the duration of the celebrations. explore the shop

All paid for books ordered direct sent post free within the UK!

These offers only to bona fide libraries and book charities. There are other special offers available to everyone else… explore the shop