Tales from the Other Side

Christopher Ejsmond has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Asperger's Syndrome. He lives with the legacy of child sexual abuse, severe mental illness, alcoholism, poor physical health and caring for a severely disabled parent. Although he struggled in mainstream education, he later found his direction in life and won a scholarship to Magdalene College Cambridge where he graduated in History and Philosophy of Science. He also studied Slavonic languages and cultures at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London. He is a qualified Social Worker. This, his second published collection of poetry, reflects the ideas, world events and personal experiences which have shaped his thinking and style of expression. He has previously published a collection of poems, Reflections on Life (2008), with Chipmunkapublishing. The book is a collection of ninety poems focussing on the author's experience of mental distress and his journey of self-awareness and recovery. The poems carry a message of hope and explore some of the subconscious and symbolic undercurrents which have shaped those experiences and have informed the thinking behind the words. Many of the poems explore philosophical and spiritual truths and address the existentialist struggle to acquire an authentic experience, poetic voice and personal identity through the written word and the image of the urban writer. The book is aimed at the informed general reader with an interest in mental health and spirituality through the medium of contemporary experimental creative writing. The issues raised in the work touch on stigma and social toleration of "otherness" by using complex philosophical imagery and an exploration of lived experience, emotions, identity and ideas of the self. The author makes frequent use of the concept of personal origins, the journey through life and its end, as well as tying up this journey with broader social and political world events within an overarching battle of the loss of faith and its recovery through the written word.