Writing Rights: Roisin Medina McNamara (16) - Stranger

In the first Fighting Words workshop, as well as talking about issues that effect children and young people, we also discussed storytelling and how to get a message out to the public.

From this, Roisin has drawn on her own personal experience to write her poem based around the right to express who you are without judgement, and how, in her view, girls often have pressures from society to look a certain way.

Below is a transcript of what Roisin said.

0:00 (Music) I'm Roisin Medina Mc Namara, and I'm 16. 00:11 I did a really short poem, on kind of sort of feminist kind of topic. I went out to a party last week and just the feelings i had when i got home, it was kind of inspired by that, if I read it I think you’ll kind of get it. 00:27 I think it means that girls, like all of us we have to present a face to be accepted as female, like as an acceptable female in this kind of society otherwise you’re seen as lazy or ugly or all this. This isn’t just for feminism, when you change so much of yourself to be accepted by your peers or by yourself if you’ve been made to think that way, you’re a stranger, and the right to express yourself is gone. 01:01 Stranger She’ll come home, Middle of the night, Lipstick on and heels on high. Take the stairs up to her room, She has bruises from her shoes. Bathroom lights, She gets a fright, Stranger in the mirror, Doesn’t look right. Makeup remover, and half an hour later, Sees herself now, Who she’s meant to be, but that’s the girl no one wanted to see.

© Roisin Medina McNamara 2014

Accompanying Music: 'Break the Clock'

Fighting Words is a creative writing centre established by Roddy Doyle and Sean Love. http://www.fightingwords.ie/