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Shame & Compassion

A Poetry Mixtape Edited by Rachel McCrum

J-Card (PDF)

piv-liner_shame-and-compassion1.pdf

The Poems

My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears

Mohja Kahf

My grandmother puts her feet in the sink

of the bathroom at Sears

to wash them in the ritual washing for prayer,

wudu,

because she...

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Too Negative

Suzannah Showler

I was a kid other kids’

parents gossiped about.

They told their children

what I was: too negative.

I get it. Fair to fear...

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Dear Death,

Jason Camlot

Am I a praise poet or a blame poet?

Today I am a blame poet.

O Death, face it, existence

doesn’t like you.

You can’t sing. You can’t...

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Embarrased

Hollie McNish

i thought it was ok - i could understand the reasons

they said there might be young children or a nervous man seeing

this small piece...

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you aren't going to like what i have to say

Donato Mancini

before i start i want to say you shouldn’t blame yourself

there’s no point in beating around the bush

there’s something we need to talk about

this is the most...

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Not Waving But Drowning

Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you...

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Northern Light

Jillian Christmas

Stepping off the plane in Whitehorse

the last thing I expect to feel

is home

not quite alone

but close enough

here in this great black north.

...

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Conversion

Megan Fernandes

sam says you can’t name your book good boys without a dog

but sam doesn’t know that i am the dog

i am the ultimate mutt and i am telling him this story

at the...

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It was in a boardroom

Tyler Pennock

It was in a boardroom

that I witnessed the latest killing

A room filled with knowledgeable

white people

trying to understand

...

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Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand...

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Five Postcards from Jericho

Sina Queyras

Dear Regret, my leaning this morning, my leather foot, want of

stone, age old, my...

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The Playlist

We are currently adding to the Mixtape playlists, so check back soon and often! Send us your recitation of one the poems in this Mixtape, and we may add it to the Playlist!

Thierney Dignadice "CONVERSION" by Megan Fernandes

Berry Genge: “you aren’t going to like what i have to say” by Donato Mancini

Recommended Reading

Poets & poems

Hollie McNish performing Embarassed

Naomi Shihab Nye talking about the inspiration for Kindness

An Interview with Jillian Christmas
The Guest House translated by Coleman Barks

Alternative translations of The Guest House

There are many scholarly and poetic translations of Rumi from the original Farsi, and much debate over what constitutes a good translation. American writer Coleman Barks is well-regarded but also often seen as an ‘interpreter’ rather than translator, as he does not speak Farsi. This link gives two other alternative translations of the same poem.

On Shame and Shaming

Brené Brown - Listening to Shame (Ted Talk, 2012)

Monica Lewinsky – The Price of Shame (Ted Talk, 2015)

Jon Ronson ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’ (Penguin Random House, 2016)

The Shame of Public Shaming (The Conversation, 2016)

Your Brain on Guilt And Shame (Brainfacts, 2019)

Anne Helen Petersen – The Social Media Machine is in Overdrive Right Now (Buzzfeed News, 2020)

Nathaniel Hawthorne ‘The Scarlet Letter’ (ebook online)

Rachel‘s Liner Notes

user1356199 · Shame & Compassion

Humans have understood how to use shame – and the fear of shame – as a method of social control for centuries. We understood how, by making people feel small and powerless and wrong, we could remove their power. Throughout history, societies and religious institutions have used public shaming to publicly punish those who have done wrong. Today, we have the internet. A false step, a mistake can quickly mean a pile-on. We don’t even have to look in the eyes of the person we are shaming.

Suzannah Showler’s Too negative, and Megan Fernandes’ conversion give us a flavour – maybe even a shuddering reminder – of the lingering discomfort of feeling ashamed. These poems describe social situations that have gone wrong, where someone has acted ‘out of place’, is seen as unacceptably different or as a threat to the social order. Donato Mancini’s you aren’t going to like what I have to say takes it a step further, with chilling ambiguity. Is the speaker really speaking with the addressee’s best intentions at heart, or offering a passive-aggressive threat couched in the language of care? These aren’t comfortable poems to read, and Stevie Smith’s Not Waving But Drowning shows how misguided these collective social judgments can be.

Tyler Pennock’s It was in a boardroom exposes shame as a tool of oppression, particularly when it is used by a dominant social power or race to silence alternative perspectives. The poem itself becomes an act of defiance against that silencing, and turns the shame back on the powers that be. Similarly, Hollie McNish’s magnificent Embarrassed fights back at societal hypocrisy over breastfeeding in public. McNish’s funny, pointed, defiant poems often deal with body and gender shaming. Her poems flip shame on its head, punching back up at the institutions and societal norms that would keep her down. In My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears, Mohja Kahf uses both sly humor and unassailable dignity to defy social pressure and a lack of generosity for diverse cultural contexts in an American bathroom.

Poetry can also be the enactment of everything that shame is not: compassion, empathy and care. Naomi Shihab Nye’s Kindness is steeped in these qualities. Sina Queyras’ Five Postcards from Jericho – addressed to Regret, Time, an unnamed someone – are full of observance and curiosity, of connection and care.

Shame isn’t always bad. Sometimes it seems that we’ve gotten so afraid of the ‘conscience-beast’ that we don’t know how to live with it, how to use it. Finally, Jillian Christmas’ Northern Light brings these themes together, asking us to be big enough to hold all of them inside.

‘There is not always a way around,

but I promise you a way through

if we can remember both the haunted

and the Hunters,

if we can be courageous enough to dig

into the depths of humane capabilities,

stretch our capacities for tolerance and love.

How strange and brave are we?’

About Rachel

Rachel McCrum is a poet, performer, and workshop facilitator. Originally from Northern Ireland, she lived in Edinburgh, Scotland between 2010 and 2016. She was the first BBC Scotland Poet-in-Residence, and Broad of the cult spoken word cabaret Rally & Broad. She has taught and performed in Greece, South Africa, Haiti, and Canada, and toured her first book, ... More

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Shame & Compassion

A Poetry Mixtape Edited by Rachel McCrum

The Poems

My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears

Too Negative

Dear Death,

Embarrased

you aren't going to like what i have to say

Not Waving But Drowning

Northern Light

Conversion

It was in a boardroom

Kindness

Five Postcards from Jericho

The Playlist

Recommended Reading

Poets & poems

On Shame and Shaming

Rachel‘s Liner Notes

About Rachel