0:00:02 > 0:00:05Now on BBC News, HARDtalk.
0:00:09 > 0:00:15Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur.
0:00:16 > 0:00:21A dangerous to generalise about the human impulse to create art. But it
0:00:21 > 0:00:29does seem it is often linked to the experience of dark, painful places.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33My guest today is a renowned poet and playwright whose writing and
0:00:33 > 0:00:36performance is laid bare his own intimate wounds. Lemn Sissay was
0:00:36 > 0:00:42abandoned as a baby, rejected why his foster family, abused in public
0:00:42 > 0:00:46institutions of care. He has since been on a quest to understand his
0:00:46 > 0:00:50past and piece together his identity. Along the way, he found a
0:00:50 > 0:00:55remarkable poetic voice. How?
0:01:15 > 0:01:22Lemn Sissay, welcome to HARDtalk.
0:01:22 > 0:01:28Hello, Stephen.You are a writer, a poet, but you are also a public
0:01:28 > 0:01:32performer. One is very solitary, one by definition is clearly public.
0:01:32 > 0:01:38Which is the more authentic, comfortable you?You know, I think
0:01:38 > 0:01:43they are both authentic, and both comfortable. You need to... You need
0:01:43 > 0:01:51to... You need to be a loan to write and to explore, and to find these
0:01:51 > 0:01:57sort of chemical compound of the Pulham. And you need to read on
0:01:57 > 0:02:03stage so that that chemical compound blows in the fireworks and sheds
0:02:03 > 0:02:09light -- poem. You know...And as for poetry as opposed to other art
0:02:09 > 0:02:13forms, you have done other things, and in particular you have written
0:02:13 > 0:02:17quite a lot of plays, but I think you have said poetry is your truest
0:02:17 > 0:02:21self, the voice that lives at the back of your mind. Is there
0:02:21 > 0:02:25something special for you about poetry?As a child, poetry was a
0:02:25 > 0:02:35place where I could find a familial resonance. In other words, when I
0:02:35 > 0:02:41had no family as a child, the writing of poetry would act as
0:02:41 > 0:02:46memory, so that I could identify where I had been, who I had been
0:02:46 > 0:02:52with, what I felt, at any given sort of time in my childhood. And that is
0:02:52 > 0:02:58really what family does. And in lieu of that, poetry allowed me to have a
0:02:58 > 0:03:05place to look back out and say, oh, I was there then.You mean, and I
0:03:05 > 0:03:09don't want to be too literal, but POMS are almost like you're
0:03:09 > 0:03:15surrogate family?Exactly. If family is a set of disputed memories
0:03:15 > 0:03:20between one group of people over a lifetime, which I didn't have, I
0:03:20 > 0:03:23didn't have anyone to dispute the memory, memory is an essential part
0:03:23 > 0:03:30of family. And my poems were memory of any given event in my life.Well,
0:03:30 > 0:03:33you have introduced the already two thoughts about your childhood, and
0:03:33 > 0:03:37the colours so much of your writing. And I guess your take on the world,
0:03:37 > 0:03:44really, what you went through as a child, as a young one. So I do want
0:03:44 > 0:03:48to talk about it a little bit. And, for people who don't know your
0:03:48 > 0:03:52story, I mean, your mum was a young Ethiopian woman who came to the UK
0:03:52 > 0:03:57to study, I think.She came in the expansion of Ethiopia through the
0:03:57 > 0:04:02emperor, who was sending out students across the world to get
0:04:02 > 0:04:06education and then to and feed back into the growth of Ethiopia. It was
0:04:06 > 0:04:11a very exciting time in Ethiopia at that time.What she pregnant,
0:04:11 > 0:04:15actually, when she arrived?Good question. I am not sure she was
0:04:15 > 0:04:20pregnant when she arrived. I think I was conceived quite literally in the
0:04:20 > 0:04:25journey.Interesting, but here she was, a young woman in a new country,
0:04:25 > 0:04:29an alien culture, trying to find her place. And she then found herself
0:04:29 > 0:04:33pregnant, had the baby, and clearly decided she could not live her life
0:04:33 > 0:04:39with this baby at this particular time, and decided to give it up, you
0:04:39 > 0:04:44are, of course.Women are incredible, OK? In the act of giving
0:04:44 > 0:04:53a child away to be fostered or adopted is to me the action of a
0:04:53 > 0:04:57heroine. And what my mother did she asked me to be fostered for a short
0:04:57 > 0:05:01period of time while she studied so she could then take me back to
0:05:01 > 0:05:07Ethiopia, say a year, a year and a half? The social worker gave me to
0:05:07 > 0:05:10foster parent censored treat this as an adoption, he is yours forever,
0:05:10 > 0:05:13his name is Norman.That was a fundamental deception which change
0:05:13 > 0:05:18the course of your life.It utterly changed the course of my life, yes.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22So my foster parents took me and they said we are your parents now,
0:05:22 > 0:05:26and we are your parents forever. And I thought they were my mum and dad.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31They grew up in the north of England...In a very, it has to be
0:05:31 > 0:05:35said, White, fairly insular community, where you were this brown
0:05:35 > 0:05:38skinned baby and a complete sort of novelty, an alien to many of the
0:05:38 > 0:05:43people in the community.The first time I met a black person I was nine
0:05:43 > 0:05:47years of age. So the foster parents held me there and said that they
0:05:47 > 0:05:53were mine forever, and at 12 years of age, they put me on the
0:05:53 > 0:05:57children's homes and said that they would never contact me again, and
0:05:57 > 0:06:01didn't.You know, you have had years and years to reflect on this. Why do
0:06:01 > 0:06:06you think they rejected you? Having raised you for 12 years, and then
0:06:06 > 0:06:10sent you a way for no more contact, it seems the most extraordinarily
0:06:10 > 0:06:17cruel and strange thing to do. Days... I was going through
0:06:17 > 0:06:21adolescence. So I was the eldest child in the family, and I was
0:06:21 > 0:06:25taking biscuits from the tin without saying please and thank you. I was
0:06:25 > 0:06:28staying out late with my friends. And they had not had an adolescent
0:06:28 > 0:06:34before. And this is what I think. But you were 12, he worked 16. You
0:06:34 > 0:06:39won't sniffing glue or committing serious crimes.No, I wasn't doing
0:06:39 > 0:06:46that either. They... They were... Do you know, they meant to do the best
0:06:46 > 0:06:52for me, I think, but they were naive. And they were also extremely
0:06:52 > 0:07:00religious, and they perceived that the devil was working in this
0:07:00 > 0:07:11equation, and... And yes, that is what they did.It is... It is the
0:07:11 > 0:07:14most immense, complete form of rejection.Yes, and it was complete.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18I lost in the body. I lost my mother, my father, my sisters, my
0:07:18 > 0:07:23brothers, my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents, my town, my first
0:07:23 > 0:07:27girlfriend. From that point onwards I was in no contact with any of the
0:07:27 > 0:07:30family ever. And I was placed in the children's homes with lots of other
0:07:30 > 0:07:34children who had come from abused families, and et cetera.And you
0:07:34 > 0:07:38were abused. I mean, there was racism and there was physical abuse.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42There was racism, there was physical abuse. I was in Woodend assessment
0:07:42 > 0:07:47Centre at 17 years of age, so I was held in a virtual prison for
0:07:47 > 0:07:52children for about eight months. This notion that you have already
0:07:52 > 0:08:00talked about, of writing poetry in a sense to store memory, in a way the
0:08:00 > 0:08:04poems being the witnesses to what you are going through, when did that
0:08:04 > 0:08:08began? Did that began when you are in the children's home?Yes, it
0:08:08 > 0:08:13began at 12 years of age. He knew what I wanted to be. I have always
0:08:13 > 0:08:18been clear I wanted to be a poet, I was very clear about that and I made
0:08:18 > 0:08:21a BBC radio documentary where one of the staff in the children's home,
0:08:21 > 0:08:24one of the cleaners... Cleaners are really interesting people in
0:08:24 > 0:08:27institutions, because they see everything. They see what's wrong
0:08:27 > 0:08:30and they see what's right. And because they are not staff, they are
0:08:30 > 0:08:33not social workers, they see everything. They are quite an
0:08:33 > 0:08:37incredible resource to a child, actually. They they should be paid
0:08:37 > 0:08:42more. But one cleaner said I remember you in the children's home,
0:08:42 > 0:08:45and I remember when you were writing, and I remember you
0:08:45 > 0:08:50scribbling your pieces of paper and throwing them away and starting
0:08:50 > 0:08:54again, et cetera.I should say, we have discussed this, because you
0:08:54 > 0:08:58have agreed to do it, I want you to read a poem, because I want people
0:08:58 > 0:09:02to get a flavour of the poetry, and your voice, as well, and it is
0:09:02 > 0:09:08called Children's a bigger home, and it is a very powerful and a very
0:09:08 > 0:09:13bleak description of what a bit of it felt like. But I just wonder...
0:09:13 > 0:09:16This sort of poetry, which is somewhat typical of things you have
0:09:16 > 0:09:21reflect upon in your life, and about your past, is there something -- is
0:09:21 > 0:09:24this something you wrote long afterwards? When did you write down
0:09:24 > 0:09:28some of these things, some of these memories?I know that I wrote some
0:09:28 > 0:09:33of these at the time, and I wrote some of them after leaving care. You
0:09:33 > 0:09:36know, you really do live your childhood out in your adult life. It
0:09:36 > 0:09:40is not in your childhood that the abuse of being in care actually come
0:09:40 > 0:09:44to life. It is when you leaving you draw on your childhood as you grow
0:09:44 > 0:09:49into an adult. It is then that you see the effect that it has had on
0:09:49 > 0:09:54you. And it is then that you look back and realise whatever abuses
0:09:54 > 0:10:01have happened to you.Can we hear this one verse from Children's Home.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06Yes, one verse from children's home. We had been given booby-trapped
0:10:06 > 0:10:10timebombs, trigger wires hidden, strapped on the inside. He became a
0:10:10 > 0:10:14place of controlled explosions, self mutilations, screams, suicide. Of
0:10:14 > 0:10:18young people returned, returned to sender. Half lit dorms of midnight
0:10:18 > 0:10:22moans. We might well have all been children, but this was never a
0:10:22 > 0:10:31children's home.Mutilation, screams and suicide.Yes, all of those
0:10:31 > 0:10:36things happened in the care system, some of them... Yes.I mean, you
0:10:36 > 0:10:39have been through the most extraordinary journey in recent
0:10:39 > 0:10:46years, because you, having reflect that for so long on what happened to
0:10:46 > 0:10:50you, you decided you are going to seek some sort of legal recourse
0:10:50 > 0:10:54against the council, that lied to you, like you about your own mother,
0:10:54 > 0:10:58about your own history and identity, and kept you in those homes for five
0:10:58 > 0:11:03or six years. And, in the course of taking them to court, you had to go
0:11:03 > 0:11:09through a psychologist's report. An in-depth sort of forensic look deep
0:11:09 > 0:11:16into your psyche.Yes.That, I imagine, has reintroduced due to so
0:11:16 > 0:11:23much of the pain that has been inside you for so long.Yes. I would
0:11:23 > 0:11:31say that, when somebody else takes a look at your life, and they... They
0:11:31 > 0:11:41break it down into... Into a report, which outlines the damage that was
0:11:41 > 0:11:49done to you via your childhood, that's quite... That's quite an
0:11:49 > 0:11:53event, to read that.Well, I will tell you what is even more
0:11:53 > 0:11:59extraordinary, is your decision to only see and hear what was in that
0:11:59 > 0:12:04report live, as it were, on a theatre stage, when a fellow actor
0:12:04 > 0:12:09played the role of the psychologist, and read the report to you, and you
0:12:09 > 0:12:13sat in a chair and listened. And it was the first time you have ever
0:12:13 > 0:12:16heard it, listened to this long exposition of the damage done to
0:12:16 > 0:12:20you, including the post- traumatic stress, the abuse of alcohol, other
0:12:20 > 0:12:24forms of mental damage that the psychologist found in you, and you
0:12:24 > 0:12:32took it all in front of an audience, on stage. A 1-off, completely
0:12:32 > 0:12:37extraordinary performance. Why did you do that?I did it because other
0:12:37 > 0:12:43people have been through this process, particularly in Wales, and
0:12:43 > 0:12:48they have had a psychologist report written about them, and the suicide
0:12:48 > 0:12:53rate of people who have been through this process is high. So I didn't
0:12:53 > 0:12:58want that, I didn't want that to happen to me. So I felt safer to
0:12:58 > 0:13:07hear the report read to me on stage by an actor here in England, and I
0:13:07 > 0:13:15feel safer on stage than I do it, is probably the truth.What was it like
0:13:15 > 0:13:21listening to it?It was quite disturbing, and it... What it was
0:13:21 > 0:13:25quite liberating as well, because there were 350 people, 400 people,
0:13:25 > 0:13:33at the Royal Court Theatre in west London. There just to support me.
0:13:33 > 0:13:38Just to be with me, just to hold me in mind. It was like being hugged by
0:13:38 > 0:13:45a nation. It was a beautiful event, and I'm proud to have done it. I
0:13:45 > 0:13:50have not looked at the report since then, no, I haven't. And I won't.
0:13:50 > 0:13:55You have talked about how any society can be judged by the way
0:13:55 > 0:13:59deals with the children who do not have their own families, who are
0:13:59 > 0:14:03institutionalised, cared for by the State. You said in 2012 you can
0:14:03 > 0:14:07define how strong a democracy is by how its government treats this kind
0:14:07 > 0:14:12of child. I don't mean children, I mean the child of the state.Yes. If
0:14:12 > 0:14:16you are in care, the government is legally your parents. So...And what
0:14:16 > 0:14:20does it say about the Britain that you have grown up in, your
0:14:20 > 0:14:24treatment, what happened to you? What does it say? And, you know,
0:14:24 > 0:14:30children still struggle and suffer in care today.
0:14:31 > 0:14:36all the care system in England solely from my family.The care
0:14:36 > 0:14:40worker Mimi after himself.You are briefly called Norman, won't you?18
0:14:40 > 0:14:51years! It locked me away and presently a child. Yes, I won't
0:14:51 > 0:14:57redress do that.And that is important, clearly, because you have
0:14:57 > 0:15:00pursued that with determination. But there is something us about you
0:15:00 > 0:15:07which fascinates me, and is that idea of forgiveness. Because as you
0:15:07 > 0:15:11have conducted your career and becoming a renowned poet, you have
0:15:11 > 0:15:18been on a long-term quest to find family, to find your own birth
0:15:18 > 0:15:22mother, make sense of her life and her decisions, and the sort of half
0:15:22 > 0:15:27siblings that you have around the world. I am surprised that you have
0:15:27 > 0:15:32friend that in terms of forgiveness rather than in anger, in a way. Is
0:15:32 > 0:15:37there no angry new?I have been angry. I have been incredibly angry.
0:15:37 > 0:15:43I have been hurt and I have come to realise, well, I am not defined by
0:15:43 > 0:15:51my scars, but by the incredible ability to heal. And that
0:15:51 > 0:15:58forgiveness is part of healing, and that it is really important that I
0:15:58 > 0:16:06forgive my foster parents and I forgive social services here in
0:16:06 > 0:16:12England that store my mother from me, and I should forgive my mother
0:16:12 > 0:16:17because it is very difficult when an adult child comes back to find you.
0:16:17 > 0:16:22It was very difficult for her, I think.People watching this would
0:16:22 > 0:16:26probably want to believe that when you find your birth mother, and when
0:16:26 > 0:16:29you went back to your foster parents, much later in life, when he
0:16:29 > 0:16:33became a successful artist, what we would perhaps all like to believe is
0:16:33 > 0:16:37that you found relationships that were meaningful, that you had found
0:16:37 > 0:16:46family, in a way, in these two different strands of your life. Did
0:16:46 > 0:16:53you?I think I've found - I think it is collocated when you find your
0:16:53 > 0:16:58family, my father's family, in his brothers and sisters, my aunts and
0:16:58 > 0:17:03uncles, my mother and her children...We are talking about the
0:17:03 > 0:17:07birth family, now. The Ethiopian family. Are they in your life today?
0:17:07 > 0:17:15I now know who my family is. The truth is that it is very difficult
0:17:15 > 0:17:24for them or for me or for any of us to form familial relationships. They
0:17:24 > 0:17:31are all good people. But it is quite shocking when somebody comes into
0:17:31 > 0:17:42your family, like me.In a sense and innocence demands of them a form of
0:17:42 > 0:17:47truth telling. -- in a sense demands a form of truth telling.Families
0:17:47 > 0:17:51are OK. They want the truth structure just as it is.
0:17:51 > 0:17:56Unfortunately I challenge that.Does that mean you can't... And I can
0:17:56 > 0:17:59tell this is extremely difficult view, but does that mean that you
0:17:59 > 0:18:05cannot really have long-term close relationships with these people from
0:18:05 > 0:18:12your life?You would have to ask them about that. I mean, just
0:18:12 > 0:18:15imagine somebody coming into your house and standing there and saying
0:18:15 > 0:18:18OK, I am now the oldest brother, and by the way, your parents were
0:18:18 > 0:18:22sleeping with other people at some point in their life that you do not
0:18:22 > 0:18:30know about, and staff. And so I think that possibly - possibly, I do
0:18:30 > 0:18:36know, family is about what is not said. -- and stuff. It is about not
0:18:36 > 0:18:39seeing things. It is about holding their collective group in mind. I'm
0:18:39 > 0:18:53somebody who wants answers. My name, in the language of my origins, it
0:18:53 > 0:19:03means time. Ethiopians now know me as the person called and stuff. --
0:19:03 > 0:19:08know me as the person called why. In the land which of my origins, it
0:19:08 > 0:19:14means why. Having a name like that is a challenge to his family. And I
0:19:14 > 0:19:20don't know how families work, so I am not very... I am not very
0:19:20 > 0:19:27equipped to understand the subtleties of family. So no, I'd
0:19:27 > 0:19:32don't, most of my family to speak to me. My father's children and my
0:19:32 > 0:19:39mother's children, actually, and you know, yes, it is complicated,
0:19:39 > 0:19:45Stephen.Throughout all of this, I have called it a quest. It involved
0:19:45 > 0:19:49your foster parents and talking to them, too. But through all of us,
0:19:49 > 0:19:53you have kept writing. It seems to me that there is serving addressing
0:19:53 > 0:19:56about your creativity and your poetry in particular. You see that
0:19:56 > 0:20:00you have delivered the moment. You say, you know, I cannot live in the
0:20:00 > 0:20:04past, and they cannot look too far into the future. I had to be and
0:20:04 > 0:20:08they have to create in the here and now. And I understand that. And yet
0:20:08 > 0:20:11so much of your writing, in this sort of anthology and others, is
0:20:11 > 0:20:17actually about this past. So you do go back all the time in your head.I
0:20:17 > 0:20:22have delivered the present. Thank you for the reminder. Now we can
0:20:22 > 0:20:28start the interview. Because that is a survival technique.But the
0:20:28 > 0:20:34present is actually a product of you coming to terms and coping with and
0:20:34 > 0:20:37weaving stories about your past. You cannot separate them. Jeev make if
0:20:37 > 0:20:42you live in the past, you are not in the present.And you are not alive
0:20:42 > 0:20:46and real and authentic and true to yourself. -- if you live in the
0:20:46 > 0:20:51past. I do believe I live in my past. In terms of my writing. I
0:20:51 > 0:20:57write about what inspires me at the time. And if that includes my time
0:20:57 > 0:21:02in the children's homes, then that is all well and good, but what
0:21:02 > 0:21:07happened then affects away now. I think living in the present is a way
0:21:07 > 0:21:13of living the best life that you can live, and forgiveness is one of the
0:21:13 > 0:21:17best ways of being able to live in the present, because otherwise you
0:21:17 > 0:21:22Rory 's --
0:21:26 > 0:21:31-- otherwise you always live in the past. You go through the process of
0:21:31 > 0:21:37anger, you'd go through the process of war, and then you have to look at
0:21:37 > 0:21:42yourself and equip yourself with the process of peace. That is crucial to
0:21:42 > 0:21:46anyone you communicate with. And if all you have ever had is the defence
0:21:46 > 0:21:52mechanisms or the fight or flight mechanism, then you how to learn new
0:21:52 > 0:22:00ways of being true true to make to yourself and those around you. Being
0:22:00 > 0:22:07in the present is one of the ways to do that. -- being true to yourself
0:22:07 > 0:22:12and those around you.Neil Young life, you are so much an outsider
0:22:12 > 0:22:16and so much alone, and I think you reflected on the fact that you did
0:22:16 > 0:22:20not have anybody who had known you for longer than one year. -- in your
0:22:20 > 0:22:26young life. That is an extraordinarily difficult and
0:22:26 > 0:22:31isolating place to be in many ways. And now you are an artist who is
0:22:31 > 0:22:34widely respected and renowned. You have received all sorts of
0:22:34 > 0:22:40accolades. A gong from the Queen. You have your ponds inscribed in
0:22:40 > 0:22:45Grenot in London and Manchester. You were the official poet gains. And of
0:22:45 > 0:22:48course you at the Chancellor of majesty university, which is a
0:22:48 > 0:22:54lovely and highly prestigious thing to be. Do you no longer feel like an
0:22:54 > 0:23:00outsider? -- the official port of the Olympic Games.We all feel like
0:23:00 > 0:23:07an outsider. For ever, whether we are inside or not. It is OK to be an
0:23:07 > 0:23:15outsider. It gives you a unique perspective. There are tons of us
0:23:15 > 0:23:19who are outsiders who have lived through the care system and who have
0:23:19 > 0:23:22become successful, but I'm successful in spite of what happened
0:23:22 > 0:23:27to me, not because of what happened to me.So this notion of art, and
0:23:27 > 0:23:31reflect on this in the beginning when I reflected on our coming out
0:23:31 > 0:23:35of dark and painful places, you don't believe that your art was, in
0:23:35 > 0:23:40a sense, it that you're suffering was a requirement to you to be the
0:23:40 > 0:23:45others that you are?No, you need to fill a reason to write. That is all
0:23:45 > 0:23:50you need. It is not had to be about experience. You do not need to have
0:23:50 > 0:23:53a bad express to be a good artist. Otherwise I would tell people to
0:23:53 > 0:23:57have a bad experience to become a good artist. That is not true. We
0:23:57 > 0:24:01all have stories. One of the things that I treasure is the fact that a
0:24:01 > 0:24:05story like mine allows me to build ridges to people. And for people to
0:24:05 > 0:24:10build bridges to me. I don't feel isolated as much as I feel I have a
0:24:10 > 0:24:14reason to Connecticut. -- allows me to build bridges to people. Allows
0:24:14 > 0:24:21me to communicate. And that is a gift. -- I have a reason to
0:24:21 > 0:24:25communicate.Thank you for joining us on HARDtalk It is an honour, man.
0:24:25 > 0:24:40Thank you very much indeed.