A dangerous to generalise about the human impulse to create art. But it does seem it is often linked to the experience of dark, painful places. My experience of dark, painful places. My guest today is a renowned poet and playwright whose writing and performance is laid bare his own intimate wounds. Lemn sissay was abandoned as a baby, rejected why his fosterfamily, abandoned as a baby, rejected why his foster family, abused abandoned as a baby, rejected why his fosterfamily, abused in Public Institutions of care. He has since been on a quest to understand his past and piece together his identity. Along the way, he found a remarkable poetic voice. How . Lemn sissay, welcome to hardtalk. Hello, stephen. You are a writer, a poet, but you are also a public performer. One is very solitary, one by definition is clearly public. Which is the more authentic, co mforta ble which is the more authentic, comfortable you 7 which is the more authentic, comfortable you . You know, i think they are both authentic, and both co mforta ble. They are both authentic, and both comfortable. You need to. You need to. You need to be a loan to write and to explore, and to find these sort of chemical compound of the pulham. And you need to read on stage so that that chemical compound blows in the fireworks and sheds light blows in the fireworks and sheds light poem. You know. Blows in the fireworks and sheds light poem. You know. And as for poetry as opposed to other art forms, you have done other things, and in particular you have written quite a lot of plays, but i think you have said poetry is your truest self, the voice that lives at the back of your mind. Is there Something Specialfor back of your mind. Is there Something Special for you about poetry . As a child, poetry was a place where i could find a familial resonance. In other words, when i had no family as a child, the writing of poetry would act as memory, so writing of poetry would act as memory, so that i could identify where i had been, who i had been with, what i felt, at any given sort of time in my childhood. And that is really what family does. And in lieu of that, poetry allowed me to have a place to look back out and say, oh, i was there then. You mean, and i dont want to be too literal, but poms are almost like youre surrogate family . Exactly. If family isa surrogate family . Exactly. If family is a set of disputed memories between one group of people over a lifetime, which i didnt have, i didnt have anyone to dispute the memory, memory is an essential part of family. And my poems were memory of family. And my poems were memory of any given event in my life. Well, you have introduced the already two thoughts about your childhood, and the colours so much of your writing. And i guess your take on the world, really, what you went through as a child, as a young one. So i do want to talk about it a little bit. And, for people who dont know your story, i mean, your mum was a young ethiopian woman who came to the uk to study, i think. Ethiopian woman who came to the uk to study, ithink. She ethiopian woman who came to the uk to study, i think. She came in the expansion of ethiopia through the emperor, who was sending out stu d e nts emperor, who was sending out students across the world to get education and then to and feed back into the growth of ethiopia. It was a very exciting time in ethiopia at that time. What she pregnant, actually, when she arrived . Good question. I am actually, when she arrived . Good question. Iam not actually, when she arrived . Good question. I am not sure she was pregnant when she arrived. I think i was conceived quite literally in the journey. Interesting, but here she was, a young woman in a new country, an alien culture, trying to find her place. And she then found herself pregnant, had the baby, and clearly decided she could not live her life with this baby at this particular time, and decided to give it up, you are, of course. Women are incredible, ok . In the act of giving a child away to be fostered or adopted is to me the action of a heroine. And what my mother did she asked me to be fostered for a short period of time while she studied so she could then take me back to ethiopia, say a year, a year and a half . The social worker gave me to Foster Parent half . The social worker gave me to foster pa rent censored half . The social worker gave me to Foster Parent censored treat this as an adoption, he is yours forever, his name is norman. That was a fundamental deception which change the course of your life. It utterly changed the course of my life, yes. So my Foster Parents took me and they said we are your parents now, and we are your parents forever. And i thought they were my mum and dad. They grew up in the north of england. In a very, it has to be said, white, fairly insular community, where you were this brown skinned baby and a complete sort of novelty, an alien to many of the people in the community. The first timei people in the community. The first time i met a black person i was nine yea rs of time i met a black person i was nine years of age. So the Foster Parents held me there and said that they we re held me there and said that they were mine forever, and at 12 years of age, they put me on the Childrens Homes and said that they would never contact me again, and didnt. You know, you have had years and years to reflect on this. Why do you think they rejected you . Having raised you for 12 years, and then sent you a way for no more contact, it seems the most extraordinarily cruel and strange thing to do. Days. I was going through adolescence. So i was the eldest child in the family, and i was taking biscuits from the tin without saying please and thank you. I was staying out late with my friends. And they had not had an adolescent before. And this is what i think. But you were 12, he worked 16. You wont sniffing glue or committing serious crimes. No, iwasnt wont sniffing glue or committing serious crimes. No, i wasnt doing that either. They. They were. Do you know, they meant to do the best for me, i think, but they were naive. And they were also extremely religious, and they perceived that the devil was working in this equation, and. And yes, that is what they did. It is. It is the most immense, complete form of rejection. Yes, and it was complete. I lost in the body. I lost my mother, my father, my sisters, my brothers, my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents, my town, my first girlfriend. From that point onwards i was girlfriend. From that point onwards iwas in girlfriend. From that point onwards i was in no contact with any of the family ever. And i was placed in the Childrens Homes with lots of other Childrens Homes with lots of other children who had come from abused families, and et cetera. And you we re families, and et cetera. And you were abused. I mean, there was racism and there was physical abuse. There was racism, there was physical abuse. I was in Woodend Assessment Centre at 17 years of age, so i was held in a virtual prison for children for about eight months. This notion that you have already talked about, of writing poetry in a sense to store memory, in a way the poems being the witnesses to what you are going through, when did that began . Did that began when you are in the Childrens Home . Yes, it began at 12 years of age. He knew what i wanted to be. I have always been clear i wanted to be a poet, i was very clear about that and i made a bbc radio documentary where one of the staff in the Childrens Home, one of the cleaners. Cleaners are really interesting people in institutions, because they see everything. They see whats wrong and they see whats right. And because they are not staff, they are not social workers, they see everything. They are quite an incredible resource to a child, actually. They they should be paid more. But one cleaner said i remember you in the Childrens Home, andi remember you in the Childrens Home, and i remember when you were writing, and i remember you scribbling your pieces of paper and throwing them away and starting again, et cetera. I should say, we have discussed this, because you have discussed this, because you have agreed to do it, i want you to read a poem, because i want people to get a flavour of the poetry, and your voice, as well, and it is called childrens a bigger home, and it isa called childrens a bigger home, and it is a very powerful and a very bleak description of what a bit of it felt like. But ijust bleak description of what a bit of it felt like. But i just wonder. This sort of poetry, which is somewhat typical of things you have reflect upon in your life, and about your past, is there something is this something you wrote long afterwards . This something you wrote long afterwards . When did you write down some of these things, some of these memories . I know that i wrote some of these at the time, and i wrote some of them after leaving care. You know, you really do live your childhood out in your adult life. It is not in your childhood that the abuse of being in care actually come to life. It is when you leaving you draw on your childhood as you grow into an adult. It is then that you see the effect that it has had on you. And it is then that you look back and realise whatever abuses have happened to you. Can we hear this one verse from Childrens Home. Yes, one verse from Childrens Home. We had been given booby trapped timebombs, trigger wires hidden, strapped on the inside. He became a place of controlled explosions, self mutilations, screams, suicide. Of young people returned, returned to sender. Half lit dorms of midnight moans. We might well have all been children, but this was never a Childrens Home. Mutilation, screams and suicide. Yes, all of those things happened in the care system, some of them. Yes. I mean, you have been through the most extraordinary journey have been through the most extraordinaryjourney in recent yea rs, extraordinaryjourney in recent years, because you, having reflect that for so long on what happened to you, you decided you are going to seek some sort of Legal Recourse against the council, that lied to you, like you about your own mother, about your own history and identity, and kept you in those homes for five or six years. And, and kept you in those homes for five orsix years. And, in and kept you in those homes for five or six years. And, in the course of taking them to court, you had to go through a psychologists report. An in depth sort of forensic look deep into your psyche. Yes. That, i imagine, has reintroduced due to so much of the pain that has been inside you for so long. Yes. I would say that, when somebody else takes a look at your life, and they. They break it down into. Into a report, which outlines the damage that was done to you via your childhood, thats quite. Thats quite an event, to read that. Well, i will tell you what is even more extraordinary, is your decision to only see and hear what was in that report live, as it were, on a theatre stage, when a fellow actor played the role of the psychologist, and read the report to you, and you sat ina and read the report to you, and you sat in a chair and listened. And it was the first time you have ever heard it, listened to this long exposition of the damage done to you, including the post traumatic stress, the abuse of alcohol, other forms of mental damage that the psychologist found in you, and you took it all in front of an audience, on stage. A 1 off, completely extraordinary performance. Why did you do that . I did it because other people have been through this process , people have been through this process, particularly in wales, and they have had a psychologist report written about them, and the suicide rate of people who have been through this process is high. So i didnt wa nt this process is high. So i didnt want that, i didnt want that to happen to me. So i felt safer to hear the report read to me on stage by an actor here in england, and i feel safer on stage than i do it, is probably the truth. What was it like listening to it . It was quite disturbing, and it. What it was quite liberating as well, because there were 350 people, 400 people, at the Royal Court Theatre in west london. Therejust to at the Royal Court Theatre in west london. There just to support me. Just to be with me, just to hold me in mind. It was like being hugged by a nation. It was a beautiful event, and im proud to have done it. I have not looked at the report since then, no, i havent. And i wont. You have talked about how any society can be judged you have talked about how any society can bejudged by you have talked about how any society can be judged by the way deals with the children who do not have their own families, who are institutionalised, cared for by the state. You said in 2012 you can define how strong a democracy is by how its government treats this kind of child. I dont mean children, i mean the child of the state. Yes. If you are in care, the government is legally your parents. So. And what does it say about the britain that you have grown up in, your treatment, what happened to you . What does it say . And, you know, children still struggle and suffer in care today. All the care system in england solely from my family. The care worker mimi after himself. You are briefly called norman, wont you . Yea rs briefly called norman, wont you . Years it locked me away and presently a child. Yes, i wont redress do that. And that is important, clearly, because you have pursued that with determination. But there is something us about you which fascinates me, and is that idea of forgiveness. Because as you have conducted your career and becoming a renowned poet, you have been on a long term quest to find family, to find your own birth mother, make sense of her life and her decisions, and the sort of half siblings that you have around the world. Iam siblings that you have around the world. I am surprised that you have friend that in terms of forgiveness rather than in anger, in a way. Is there no angry new . I have been angry. I have been incredibly angry. I have been hurt and i have come to realise, well, iam not i have been hurt and i have come to realise, well, i am not defined by my scars, but by the incredible ability to heal. And that forgiveness is part of healing, and that it forgiveness is part of healing, and thatitis forgiveness is part of healing, and that it is really important that i forgive my Foster Parents and i forgive my Foster Parents and i forgive social services here in england that store my mother from me, and england that store my mother from me, and i should forgive my mother because it is very difficult when an aduu because it is very difficult when an adult child comes back to find you. It was very difficult for her, i think. People watching this would probably want to believe that when you find your birth mother, and when you find your birth mother, and when you went back to your foster pa rents, you went back to your Foster Parents, much later in life, when he became a successful artist, what we would perhaps all like to believe is that you found relationships that we re that you found relationships that were meaningful, that you had found family, ina were meaningful, that you had found family, in a way, in these two different strands of your life. Did you . I think ive found i think it is collocated when you find your family, my fathers family, in his brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, my mother and her children. We are talking about the birth family, now. The ethiopian family. Are they in your life today . I now know who my family is. The truth is that it is very difficult for them orfor me orfor any of truth is that it is very difficult for them or for me or for any of us to form familial relationships. They are all good people. But it is quite shocking when somebody comes into yourfamily, like shocking when somebody comes into your family, like me. In a sense and innocence demands of them a form of truth telling. In a sense demands a form of truth telling. Families are ok. They want the truth structure just as it is. U nfortu nately i structure just as it is. Unfortunately i challenge that. Does that mean you cant. And i can tell this is extremely difficult view, but does that mean that you cannot really have long term Close Relationships with these people from your life . You would have to ask them about that. I mean, just imagine somebody coming into your house and standing there and saying 0k, house and standing there and saying ok, iam house and standing there and saying ok, i am now the oldest brother, and by the way, your parents were sleeping with other people at some point in their life that you do not know about, and staff. And so i think that possibly possibly, i do know, family is about what is not said. And stuff. It is about not seeing things. It is about holding their collective group in mind. Im somebody who wants answers. My name, in the language of my origins, it means time. Ethiopians now know me as the person called and stuff. Know me as the person called why. In the land which of my origins, it means why. Having a name like that isa means why. Having a name like that is a challenge to his family. And i dont know how families work, so i am not very. I am dont know how families work, so i am not very. Iam not dont know how families work, so i am not very. I am not very equipped to understand the su btleties equipped to understand the subtleties of family. So no, id dont, most of my family to speak to me. My fathers children and my mothers children, actually, and you know, yes, it is complicated, stephen. Throughout all of this, i have called it a quest. It involved your Foster Parents and talking to them, too. But through all of us, you have kept writing. It seems to me that there is serving addressing about your creativity and your poetry in particular. You see that you have delivered the moment. You say, you know, i cannot live in the past, and they cannot look too far into the future. I had to be and they have to create in the here and now. And i understand that. And yet so much of your writing, in this sort of anthology and others, is actually about this past. So you do go back all the time in your head. Actually about this past. So you do go back all the time in your headlj have delivered the present. Thank you for the reminder. Now we can start the interview. Because that is a survival technique. Start the interview. Because that is a survivaltechnique. But start the interview. Because that is a survival technique. But the present is actually a product of you coming to terms and coping with and weaving stories about your past. You cannot separate them. Jeev make if you live in the past, you are not in the present. And you are not alive and real and authentic and true to yourself. If you live in the past. I do believe i live in my past. I do believe i live in my past. In terms of my writing. I write about what inspires me at the time. And if that includes my time in the Childrens Homes, then that is all well and good, but what happened then affects away now. I think living in the present is a way of living the best life that you can live, and forgiveness is one of the best ways of being able to live in the present, because otherwise you rory s otherwise you always live in the past. You go through the process of angen past. You go through the process of anger, youd go through the process of war, and then you have to look at yourself and equip yourself with the process of peace. That is crucial to anyone you communicate with. And if all you have ever had is the defence mechanisms or the fight or flight mechanism, then you how to learn new ways of being true true to make to yourself and those around you. Being in the present is one of the ways to do that. Being true to yourself and those around you. Neil young life, you are so much an outsider and so much alone, and i think you reflected on the fact that you did not have anybody who had known you for longer than one year. In your young life. That is an extraordinarily difficult and isolating place to be in many ways. And now you are an artist who is widely respected and renowned. You have received all sorts of accolades. A gong from the queen. You have your ponds inscribed in grenot in london and manchester. You we re grenot in london and manchester. You were the official poet gains. And of course you at the chancellor of majesty university, which is a lovely and highly prestigious thing to be. Do you no longerfeel like an outsider . The official port of the olympic games. We all feel like an outsider. For ever, whether we are inside or not. It is ok to be an outsider. It gives you a unique perspective. There are tons of us who are outsiders who have lived through the care system and who have become successful, but im successful in spite of what happened to me, not because of what happened to me, not because of what happened to me. So this notion of art, and reflect on this in the beginning when i reflected on our coming out of dark and painful places, you dont believe that your art was, in a sense, it that youre suffering was a requirement to you to be the others that you are . No, you need to fill a reason to write. That is all you need. It is not had to be about experience. You do not need to have a bad express to be a good artist. Otherwise i would tell people to have a bad experience to become a good artist. That is not true. We all have stories. One of the things that i treasure is the fact that a story like mine allows me to build ridges to people. And for people to build bridges to me. I dont feel isolated as much as i feel i have a reason to connecticut. Allows me to build bridges to people. Allows me to communicate. And that is a gift. I me to communicate. And that is a gift. I have a reason to communicate. Thank you forjoining us on communicate. Thank you forjoining us on hardtalk it is an honour, man. Thank you very much indeed. Hello. This is the point where this weeks weather begins to get considerably more dramatic. And this is the driver of the change, this curl of cloud on the satellite picture, a deep area of low pressure which has been named by the met office, storm caroline. Nothing will happen much on wednesday morning. Feeding in a lot of cloud and some mild air. Temperatures as we start the day, eight, nine, ten across the south west. Expect cloud. The odd patchy rain and drizzle that the 11 degrees for plymouth. Cardiff, similar. Across west wales, starting to turn quite breezy by this stage. The wind picking up in Northern Ireland and this area of wet weather will slide in from the west. Rain settling in across western scotland. Persistent rain in the high ground. Eastern scotland, starting the day dry. And it will be eastern areas that will have the best chance of any brightness through the day. Further west, a lot of cloud and strengthening south westerly winds. Gales in exposed spots in the west in the afternoon. Northern ireland and western scotland in particular, outbreaks of rain. A mild day wherever you are. That will not last. Wednesday night, the wind is strengthening in the west. Outbreaks of rain pushing in from the west as well, as storm caroline swings across the north of the british isles. Notice many isobars tight together. Strong winds with us for thursday. Across scotland, winds of 80 miles per hour, perhaps even stronger. Very strong winds elsewhere as well. Rain clearing away from the south east. Then brighter skies. And then some showers, which will begin to turn wintry over high ground in the north. Thats because things will be turning colder. As we move out of thursday into friday, this is a really wintry looking weather chart. The winds are whistling down from the arctic bringing cold air which will plunge right across the country. There will be some dry weather and sunshine at times. There will also be showers. Most of the showers will be snow showers. They could crop up just about anywhere. Most likely in the west, but also in the far north. And that snow will be right down to low levels. When you add on the strength of the wind, it will feel sub zero across many parts of the country. So, wet and windy weather with storm caroline. Then turning colder. And then we will see some snow showers and some ice. This is the briefing. Im sally bundock. Our top stories the white house says President Trump will recognise jerusalem as the capital of israel. Arab leaders warn it could provoke violence. Russia is banned from next years Winter Olympics in south korea, after a report uncovered systematic state sponsored doping. And frances king of rock n rolljohnny hallyday has died aged 74. Retail revolution luxury goods firms get set for a landmark european ruling on whether they can control how their goods are sold online. In business briefing, ill be getting an expert view