As I mentioned in our Clexacon post earlier this month, I had the fortune of seeing Helen Oakleigh (who you may know from Different For Girls and As We Are) perform Why We Need A Pride at the LGBTQ Women’s Spaces panel, and her book (Equality) was my first purchase of that weekend. I have to admit that I was feeling a little anxious, having put myself out of my comfort zone by going to this panel alone, and probably a bit serious; I’ve had far too many rants recently about the lack of diverse space in the LGBTQ+ community at the moment. So I was taken by surprise when the panellists announced Helen Oakleigh would be opening, but as soon as they mentioned “spoken word” and the title of the piece I was already thinking “hot damn this is my jam!”
As soon as Oakleigh stepped up, you could tell she had done this many times before. With a mischievous smile on her face and every word perfectly controlled from start to finish; she exuded confidence and I was here for it. It was easy to forget that we were in the small conference room of a London hotel, and not in the stalls of a theatre. So once I had a proper look into her career I wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see so many theatre credits, including several familiar Shakespeare titles. Why We Need A Pride is a honest and powerful piece, and beautifully summed up exactly how I feel about Pride events; that we should not forget the history of Pride that got us to where we are now. It definitely remains my favourite after reading through the collection.
The rest of the poems from Equality stick the theme of, you guessed it, equality. But whilst you may be expecting this collection to be based purely on LGBTQ+ themes, Oakleigh branches out with her social commentary. The Day We Got Equality is a testament for the effect her words can have, as this poem in particular actually left me longing for a time that I feel we should have already achieved. Woman Power is a celebration of how diverse women are without putting down their male counterparts, and the final lines did in fact leave me feeling powerful. (“if the reflection is crooked? Let’s fix it.”) Planet Plummet is the shortest from this collection but still packs a serious punch; by addressing the human ignorance and disregard of our planet, which also leads into a criticism on the greed of capitalism and the effect this also has on the environment. Education Accreditation is an exploration of the inequality education between classes and propaganda in the media, and why these might exist. Finally, I can’t really begin to summarise Imagine a World of Peace, as it deals with so many issues of society; refugees, inequality between the sexes, war and authority.
There are also eight extra “Bonus Poems” at the end of the book which, the book itself states, are “inspired one of the open-air Shakespeare tours that Oakleigh has performed in”. As a whole they are a great and light-hearted finishing touch to the collection, as they celebrate the UK’s history of theatre from Oakleigh’s own appreciation and experience; my own personal favourite from these bonus poems is In to conquer.
Honestly, my brief summaries do not do these poems justice and I recommend you check them out if you can. As I bought this collection at a convention that celebrates LGBTQ+ women and allies, I expected it to deal purely with this area of equality (and the rainbow on the cover probably didn’t help either!), Oakleigh delivered a range of topics that are both emotional and thought-provoking. I’ll drop a couple of links below for her spoken word shorts for you to look at and, if you haven’t done so already, I suggest you check out Helen Oakleigh’s work which covers a huge creative spectrum.
- Emma
Where you can find Helen on social media.
Twitter - @Helen_Oakleigh
Instagram - helenoakleigh
Links:
https://youtu.be/SXNdI1_cwgs
https://youtu.be/CuYum-BCXyA