Hussain Manawer’s words are vulnerable and straight from the heart. Using pen and paper to work through emotional pain, Hussain is passionate about the power of writing to process difficult feelings. To celebrate the launch of his debut poetry collection, Life is Sad and Beautiful, Hussain shared some words with us on the healing potential of poetry, tears and talking.
My journey into becoming a poet? How much time do you have?
My journey started when we first moved into our house in Ilford and my older sister handed me a felt tip pen and I started writing on the wall. And then my mum came up the stairs and we quickly turned the light off and ran out the room. I was allowed to write on that wall because we were putting new wallpaper on top of it. But that sensation I had of scribbling onto this blank wall in front of me made me feel something. And from there, the writing was on the wall.
I always struggled with English. But somewhere along the journey of life, I convinced myself that words are not designed to be grammatically correct.
And as long as they have a meaning and a feeling, then I’m able to get away with it. Because they were serving a purpose for me. I always needed to help my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions, the things I was picking up in the world and all of that. And from that, I kept turning the page. I just kept writing and I never stopped.
Writing poetry helped my mental health – it didn’t help it – it saved it.
Because it provided an explanation to something within my mind that could not be explained unless it had been expressed. And that is so key and fundamental, for me as an individual, in order to save myself from myself when I’m going through something. That’s how poetry aided my mental health, because when I was going through these episodes of grief and loss and depression, it’s very difficult to make sense of it when you keep it to yourself.
The pen and paper became my best friend.
And it was in that, that I found comfort, I found understanding, I found stuff that really, really helped me and saved me. And I look back on it sometimes and some of the poems in this book and think wow, I can’t believe I was there. Like mentally, I can’t believe that’s where I was. And it’s a beautiful art form. If you allow it to be. That was the remedy.
It’s like a vacuum. It sucks you in. The whole art form.
The whole creative process of writing poetry sucks you in, into a world, within your world, where emotions are alive and they’re living breathing organisms. And you see them for what they are, and sometimes I’m writing and I could just put one word down or a full stop and be like, “I’m overwhelmed. I’ve done enough for the day.” And I’ll tap out. Or sometimes, I’ll know I need to sit there for hours and write, and write it out. I genuinely feel like it gives me CPR.
To someone struggling with their mental health, I feel as if like, you have to be able to be there for yourself.
It’s really difficult sometimes to look at yourself outside of yourself but when you’re going through something, it’s so hard to be helped if you don’t acknowledge you need the help. So I feel like a lot of the time that conversation starts with myself. Having a conversation really does help, massively. It helps save your life, it helps save your mind. And it helps you to walk outside and feel light again.
Once you have the conversation with yourself you have the conversation with someone else, and after that, you begin the process of your healing.
I really feel like conversations do save lives and it’s important to have one, or many. It could be in the gym, it could be in the park, it could be on the phone, it could be online, just as long as it comes out of you. These poems that I’ve done, they’re things that just came out of me. It’s important to really talk about how you’re feeling. Everyone deserves the chance for a peaceful life, mentally.
Things that have helped me when I’ve been struggling with my mental health.
The first one is crying, I think it’s really important for me to cry. I can’t keep anything inside me, and sometimes it comes out in the form of tears. And to me that’s absolutely fine. It’s calm, because I needed to cry, it needs to come out. Dealing with grief, dealing with loss, dealing with heartbreak, dealing with depression, dealing with whatever. Crying is a natural human emotion. Then I write about it. Sometimes I might cry and write at the same time, and then something really special happens. I remember when my mum passed, my best friend came up to me and gave me a pen. And that’s what I had to do, I had to write about it and I had to cry about it. It really really helps.
The best advice I’ll give to anybody, starting to write poetry or any creative art form, is do not listen to anyone.
You do what your heart and your art tells you to do. If I listened to people, I wouldn't have completed anything I started. It doesn’t matter if nobody wants to work with you. It doesn’t matter if you’re not getting millions of views. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. You’re doing it because it serves a purpose to you. And if you do that, and it’s true and it’s vulnerable, and you keep that flame around your art burning and you protect it, you’ll create something that’s timeless. And when the time is right, that will find a home. And that will take off. Don’t start something looking at the end goal, start it from looking where your heart is. You can’t fabricate a feeling.
If you need support with your mental health, YoungMinds or the NHS can help. To read more of Hussain’s words, pick up a copy of Life is Sad and Beautiful.
