Back in June we held a special in-person edition of TWOOMPH! (the open mic with OOMPH!) at Hartlepool Hub, as part of Crossing the Tees book festival.

We always have shenanigans of some kind at TWOOMPH!s, and this time we rather cheekily nicked a poem format from the brilliant King Ink (James Whitman & Helen Wilkinson) who are in residence at 17nineteen in Sunderland, doing loads of lush stuff as a poetry collective. Their version of this poem was specifically for remembering people we’ve lost, but we opened it out as a prompt to praise anyone in your life, alive or dead.

In fact it’s a two-part prompt. First write a line saying, “I praise [person’s name], who [characteristic of that person].” Then write a second line saying “Because of you [something you know, feel, do, or have learned from them].”

The whole room wrote two lines each! And then we did an improvised performance of the collective poems, switching our all pronouns for “we”. This now is the fully-edited result, and represents a pile of paper scraps filtered through the editorial brain of our director making decisions about order, grouping, trimming, and shaping on the page. What do you think?

Crossing the Tees Praise Poem

We write in praise of our nannas, who always cooked us fish for our tea
and Jo, who always says “text me when you get home”
and Emma, who we feel safe with,
and Jamie, his bear hugs and kisses,
and Charlotte, her silly sense of fun,
and Debbie, who demolishes Dairy Milk in under 30 minutes, and sings when she cooks.

We write in praise of our dads who have hearts larger than their bodies, 
and for Amber, who always matches our energy,
and Gillian, who punched hard and loved hard,
and Luke, who cooks us dinner every night,
and Billy, who doesn’t give a gender fuck,
and Sarah, who loves without fear.

You, never without your cap and sunglasses? 
Because of you we’re alive, solid, walking tall regardless.
Because of you, every pencil requests to be drawn with,
and we don’t question if it’s ok to enjoy what we do.
Because of you we want to love ourselves, and we know how.

We write to thank Aunty Aileen who taught us how to craft perfect sugar roses,
and could say NO without apology;
and Oliver, who has brought us closer,
and Eva, who’ll add cheese to any meal she fancies,
and Emily, who turns maroon when we tell her how much she means,
and Theo, who knows when each housemate gets home by the sound of their footsteps,
who has a cup of tea ready in the kettle when our train gets in.

We give thanks for you, son, for being just you, 
the wonderful person you are.
And for you, who may be lost to the world, and to us - 
we saw your grace under fire;
Utterly gorgeous friends, saving graces,
Your smiles set the room alight.

We praise our lovers and soulmates -
You taught us how to feel unconditionally loved.
Because of you, we know grace, patience, calm, self-acceptance -
We feel like the most beautiful girl in the world.

We write for our mams, who always showed kindness to people, 
even when they didn’t deserve it - we try to do the same now.
And for our daughters who show their tattoos, and shine, 
and shun any taboo that says you can’t be that girl.
We write in praise of the most beautiful, whose energy never ends.

We thank our teachers, who ignited fires in us,
shaping our minds to find power in our words.
Because of you we’ve learned to find our own way,
and never give a fuck about other people’s opinions!
Because of you we’ve learned	
that to trust yourself is the key to greatness,
and to trust in others is to love yourself.
We always have a positive outlook on life now,
talking honestly about mental health, 
laughing at all the nonsense.

We love self-expression because of you,
but we know love needs no words.
	
Because of you we just feel a little bit braver.
Thank you – because of you, 
we feel loved.