I’m Not Here For Your Entertainment
I’m Not Here For Your Entertainment. Tara Fleur ‘Woman Of Bones’ first collection of poetry Title I’m Not Here For Your Entertainment
She is a Performance Poet, Fine Artist MA, Psychiatric Nurse, and Survivor of Trauma.
She has a battled with Mental Illness alongside a varied involvement in Acute Psychiatry and the Arts.
She has exhibited her installation art which incorporates spoken word, film and photography and independently curated several successful exhibitions of conceptual art over the past 25 years.
In 2013 she won a national painting / poetry competition (Think Arts) with a portrait of Shakespeare that was on display at Southwark Cathedral, London UK.
Tara Fleur ‘Woman Of Bones’ is new to publication but has already had poems included in collection of poetry in America by Nina Loard.
Her life story as a Poet, Artist and Survivor of Trauma can also be found in an academic psychological research publication ‘ Narratives Of Art Practise and Mental Well Being ‘ by Olivia Sagan, Bishop Grosseteste University.
Tara Fleur ‘Woman Of Bones’ performs her poetry widely across the London open mic circuit, poetry slam’s and has featured at several events.
She has an interest in collaborating with fellow poets, most recently weaving a darker thread of poetry into Ingrid Andrew’s performance piece ‘When Woman Created The World’
I’m Not Here For Your Entertainment
Is a collection of edgy, melancholic, sexually explicit, traumatic, dark, socio-political, uncomfortable and often shockingly visceral poetry.
This book of poetry is, her book of poetry.. a reflection of a life less ordinary
REVIEW
‘I am not here for your Entertainment’
by Ingrid Andrew
This woman with the beautiful name of Tara Fleur and the equally resonant and unforgettable name that first grabbed my attention ‘Woman of Bones’ has her first written her first, mesmerizing collection of poetry in the William Cornelius Harris/Jason Why stable.
The first powerful,compelling and unforgettable poem is ‘Woman of Bones’ with its continous refrain Don’t
(… don’t try to cure me, I am an incurable woman. Don’t whisper, what I already know.
Don’t dear oh dear, bones –
Don’t call me a bitch, a cunt or a cow. I am a Woman of Bones. I am a grim warrior now
…..
and don’t bother praying for me, I choose not to rest in peace ..’
Taras poems speak soul to soul, heart to heart of her own reality, her fierce and unwavering acceptance of what is, of what she feels and of her own traumatic experiences.
Her poems often speak of an almost unbearable, aching reality ‘Hush little baby, don’t wet the bed … or mama’s gonna punch you in your soft, sweet head ‘
or are again startlingly, exposingly, unforgettably, corruscatingly honest … as in ‘Sorry’ where Tara apologizes for being a bystander to the suffering she witnesses, when in her former career of psychiatric nurse … ‘I had my nurse’s hat on’ while enduring her own soul torment.
‘…. my night shifts moaned and groaned, boundaries blurred between the living and the dead, strange whispers seeping through locked doors …’
Tara’s poems are never less than extraordinarily vivid and memorable. Her eyes unflinchingly look into the darkest places and experiences that a human being can suffer, her bones speak,her voice insists on being heard.
Ingrid Andrew