The Motherhood Project E-Book

Various

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Mothers who are blissed out. Mothers who are pissed off. Mothers who are great, or grateful, or grating. Mothers who have changed, mothers who can't, mothers who can't even change nappies. Women who aren't mothers. Welcome to the 'hood. The Motherhood Project draws together dramatic monologues and real-life reflections by some of the UK's leading writers, artists and thinkers, and explores all the guilt, joy and absurdity, the regrets, pressures and taboos surrounding motherhood. The project features work by Kalhan Barath, E. V. Crowe, Juno Dawson, Suhayla El-Bushra, Jodi Gray, Hannah Khalil, Katherine Kotz, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Siggi Mwasote, Irenosen Okojie, Anya Reiss, Naomi Sheldon, Lemn Sissay MBE, Athena Stevens and Joelle Taylor. It was produced online in 2021 by Katherine Kotz in association with Drift Studio, and presented in association with Battersea Arts Centre, London.

Leseprobe

THE MOTHERHOOD PROJECT

MONOLOGUES AND REFLECTIONS ON MOTHERHOOD

Kalhan Barath E.V. Crowe Juno DawsonSuhayla El-Bushra Jodi Gray Hannah Khalil Katherine Kotz Morgan Lloyd Malcolm Siggi MwasoteIrenosen Okojie Anya Reiss Naomi Sheldon Lemn Sissay Athena Stevens Joelle Taylor

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Suited by Hannah Khalil

Inside Me by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm

Baby Yoga by Suhayla El-Bushra

Untold by Jodi Gray

Venus of Whitechapel by Naomi Sheldon

The Queen’s Head by Katherine Kotz

A Letter to My Baby by Anya Reiss

Number 1 by E.V. Crowe

Gunk by Irenosen Okojie

Juno Dawson

Joelle Taylor

Siggi Mwasote

Athena Stevens

Kalhan Barath

Lemn Sissay MBE

Author Biographies

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Introduction

Katherine Kotz

I set up The Motherhood Project as a way of bringing artists together to respond to the needs of the pandemic. Inspired by the groundswell of activism in 2020, and particularly the Black Lives Matter movement, I had been reading about the rise in calls to the domestic-violence charity Refuge, and I wanted to coordinate an artistic collaboration that would both raise money and send out a public message of solidarity to anyone feeling invisible and unsafe in lockdown.

Creatively, I was keen to engage with new writing on the topic of motherhood because I was pregnant and grappling with my own preconceptions about what lay ahead. I’d always considered motherhood to be quite a hard sell. Bearing in mind that it’s 2021 and women are still performing eighty per cent of unpaid care responsibilities, we could be forgiven for being a little hesitant about leaping open-armed into family life. In my experience, women don’t tend to talk very openly about motherhood for fear of offending one another, or seeming selfish or inadequate in some way. As a society we’re still quite quick to attach labels to women if they choose not to have children – we want to know why.

This collection is an attempt to dig into the issue and engage with a cross-section of different perspectives. I had the idea to mix real-life reflections with dramatic pieces and produce them in a fairly rudimentary way to raise money for Refuge. One by one, playwrights and authors I admired agreed to contribute something and the line-up grew ever more exciting and varied. A brilliant production company called Drift Studio agreed to help me produce the films, and waived their fee to shoot and edit them – an extraordinarily kind act which meant we could be far more ambitious on an extremely limited budget.

As lockdowns came and went, the project steadily grew. Fifteen short films were made and edited, and a streaming partner found in Battersea Arts Centre. A magnificent effort on everyone’s part.

My baby was born when we were halfway through creating the films. I can confidently tell you that it’s incredibly hard to juggle working with being a new mum, not least because the sleep deprivation turns you into a monosyllabic yeti for whom ‘spare time’ amounts to doing some mental arithmetic of your baby’s bowel movements while you hunt around the kitchen for old bits of toast. As I write this, my six-month-old is beaming at me as he massages banana into the sleeve of my once-favourite shirt, a fitting end to this fading relic from my past life.

The pieces you’re about to read are not sequential or thematically linked. It was my intention to gather a wide range of writing on the subject. I hope this collection forms part of a wider conversation about our attitudes to women and motherhood and how they could be reimagined.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Ali White, Crusoe Weston, Magda Koc, Jake Strutt, Natasha Patel, Laura Wyatt O’Keefe, Francesca Moody, Hannah Philp, Hannah Peaker, Jo Langdon, Ash Parker, Chloé Nelkin Consulting, Nick Hern Books and Battersea Arts Centre.

The Motherhood Project was generously supported by Drift Studio, Lucian Msamati, Jo Rado, Lis & Russell Strutt, Magda Koc, Charlie Burman, Julie Lloyd, Arndt Peterhansel, Michas Kotz, Alice Tennant, Zosia Williams, Lucy Harding, Soph Quin, Sue Bramwell Smith, Mysia Koc, Lesley Wood, Sonia Cala-Lesina, Gabriela Cala-Lesina, Barbara Cala-Lesina, John Foster, Pauline Marsden, Tom Spencer, Trevor Strutt, Licia Kotz, Lou Stephens, Harriet Phillips, Hannah Hooper, Carda Best, Alison Harper, Caroline Hearst, Cicely Taylor.

SUITED

Hannah Khalil

Performed by Emmanuella Cole

Directed by Caroline Byrne

Director of Photography and Editor Crusoe Weston

Sound Designer Sinéad Diskin

Camera Assistant Alex Mead

Thanks to Robin Allen

You wouldn’t have understood before.

(A beat.)

You only bleed for a few days. Weeks. Months. That toe-curling pain passes. Eventually. It’s natural. Normal. The pain. The bleeding is normal. The hair falling out is normal. The hair on your boobs is normal. Those freckles are normal. That tiredness is normal.

Normal.

It’s normal not to want to be touched.

Normal not to want to be sucked or held.

Normal.

(A beat.)

The stretch marks don’t go though. You’re stuck with those.

(A beat.)

You wouldn’t have understood before.

(A beat.)

Enjoy it now, this age passes so quickly. Make sure you hold yourself when you go to the toilet so the stitches don’t burst. Cabbage leaves help. Put your pads in the freezer. Try not to worry.

(A beat.)

She’s very small. He’s very big. Breast is best. Get her on the bottle as soon as you can.

Don’t wake the baby to feed her. Feed him every three hours.

Sleep when the baby sleeps.

I hope he’s sleeping through.

Remember when you were worried about the birth?

You wouldn’t have understood before.

(A beat.)

Hold him like this. This. This. This.

Not like that.

Try not to worry

(A beat.)

The days pass slowly but the years go quickly. Enjoy this age. It’s going to fly by. Get up every day. Get dressed. Go out. Take him swimming. To baby massage. Monkey music. Baby yoga. Fit baby to your routine. Bring her into the office. Remind them you’re still alive. Visit friends. Go on holiday. It’s easy when they’re that age. It’s cheap when they’re that age. Enjoy it now, this age passes so quickly.

(A beat.)

Once it’s come out you can’t imagine anything going up there again. But it will. Wear a bra or you’ll get milk everywhere. Not sexy. Pretend you want to. That you don’t mind everyone owning all the bits of you, touching bits of you, holding bits of you, sucking bits of you - that no bits of you are yours any more. Nothing is private. Yours. Get used to that.

(A beat.)

Don’t hate your body. It may look different but think about the wonderful thing it did. Think about the fact it made a baby – a miracle – and you bought it into the world. Of course you don’t look the same. Don’t feel the same. Because everything is different – changed – forever.

(A beat.)

A part of you is outside your body and walking around and nothing will ever be the same again.

(A beat.)

Get used to it. Enjoy it. Try to.

You wouldn’t have understood before.

(End.)

INSIDE ME

Morgan Lloyd Malcolm

Performed by Jenni Maitland

Directed by Maria Aberg

Director of Photography and Editor Ali White

Camera Assistant Max Quinton