Intimate Space

When I was 13 I went on holiday with my family. We stopped in New York for a few days on the way home, visited Central Park and saw Tommy on Broadway.

I also saw a young homeless boy withdrawing from heroine use, curled up on the pavement, desperately begging. I cried for hours and didn’t eat my dinner.

When I got back to school, I’d written a short story about a homeless character called Daryl. The story was just an average day in his life, starting with him waking at sunrise on a park bench, then walking around Manhattan begging with a paper cup for the rest of the day, until he had enough for something to eat, just before sunset. I showed my English teacher Mr Edwards, and he picked out the first two paragraphs as being particularly full of imagery. He asked me if I would take that part and try making in into a poem, which I did. He could see that the issue had deeply effected me and I was still disturbed by what I had seen.

I told him I wanted to do something more about it. When I asked him if I could compile a poetry book and sell it at our upcoming open day for the homeless, he wholeheartedly supported me. He assigned 2 upper 6th A-Level English students to help me, and they named the magazine ‘Intimate Space’. This was a phrase from another poem I had written the previous year, based on the Shakespearian Sonnet 18, ‘Should I compare thee to a summer’s day?’.
I researched homeless charities and found St. Mungo’s in London. I wrote and asked them if what I wanted to do was useful to them. They wrote back in full support.

With the support of Mr Edwards, we asked students of my year and the years below if they would like to submit poetry to be included in the magazine. We were overwhelmed with the response, with hundreds of poems being given in.

My friend Helen from my year helped me work through them all. We read every single submission and settled on about 20. The school printed them, and I walked around with my friends on open day selling the magazine for £1. With immense pride, we sent a cheque to St. Mungo’s for £117. We did this every year until I left school, and I have always been very proud.

Calling Creatives…!
I am going to resurrect Intimate Space as a multimedia project, in support of St. Mungo’s, now called St. Mungo’s Broadway. I am looking for people to donate poetry, music, short stories, photographs and images that will be sold digitally through my website, and 100% of proceeds will go to the charity. I will choose 10-20 items for the first edition to be released in January 2015. No transaction fees, no admin fees, no printing costs, nothing wasted, everything to those that need it.

If you would like to donate a piece, please get in touch via my Facebook page www.facebook.com/diellemusicuk or admin@diellemusic.com

Thank You.
Dielle