Eating Yellow

<p>The mental health unit I was admitted to forms part of Wonford House which first opened its doors on 7th July 1869 as a 'hospital for the insane'. No doubt much has changed since then but the daunting facade of that big Victorian manor has not. The first time I saw it was in the back of an ambulance thinking what a good start to a horror movie it would make.</p><p>My ward was Delderfield and inside its walls behind its locked blue doors were some of the most extraordinary people I've ever met. One of them (a fellow patient) told me a story about Vincent Van Gogh an urban legend that tells how the artist believed that eating his yellow oil paint would help him become happier. I didn't know whether the story was true but I did know what it meant to want to change your inner state so much that you'd try anything.</p><p>What follows are the poems I started writing on the ward.</p><p><br></p><p>This book is a collection of 20 poems and 17 photographs written and captured from inside a psychiatric ward. Eating Yellow is being published in support of Central London Samaritans to whom a donation of £1 will be made for every copy sold.</p>