British Ethiopian poet and performer Lemn Sissay writes prose in the same way that he speaks: succinctly, openly and with no time for bullshit. It’s this no -nonsense approach that he brings to his devastating memoir, My Name Is Why. For the first twelve years of his life, he had lived with a Christian family just outside Wigan. Until one day, with little to no explanation, they sent him off to a care home.
For the rest of his teens, Norman Greenwood, as he had been named, was shunted in and out of the care system.The term “care home” seems to be an oxymoron, as care was the last thing he received.
Recent harrowing news headlines have focused on the abuse within such institutions, and the failure to provide even the slightest bit of compassion or tenderness for young people. Sissay’s writing, with each chapter chronicling a different care home, seethes at the injustice of it all, but there’s not one moment of self -pity.
Instead, he drip- feeds the reader the story of his attempts to track down and reconnect with his birth mother, Yemarshet, an unmarried student who had been forced to give him up because of the ridiculous social stigma of being a single mum in the late sixties.
Photo by Hamish Brown.
The fact that both his adopted family and social services could fail to provide answers is absolutely appalling. This, coupled with racist abuse, is hard to read. You can only wonder how Sissay kept going. Indeed, it was his poetry that pulled him through: the love of expressing himself, and the likes of Bob Marley and Benjamin Zephaniah.
Others would become bitter, but it’s testament to Sissay that he writes this memoir with grace, wit, and real tenacity. His strength and humility is a rare gift.This book is beautiful – as tender as a bruise, or a warm embrace. Despite everything that was thrown at him, he triumphed.
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