ABSTRACT
The fact that I became a published writer when barely 17 years old was thanks in large part to the presence in my school of Chris Searle, who was himself still in his twenties. The publishing experience taught me two early lessons. One was that poetry was not really my strength, and I soon switched to other forms of writing, for which I was arguably better suited. The other lesson was more profound: that it was possible for ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Within weeks of a few of us getting together in our own time to read and discuss our creative writing, we were producing our own A3 poetry posters and flyposting them on the corrugated iron fences and boarded-up windows that seemed to dominate the grim streets of East London at the time. By doing so we became active citizens. We were announcing ourselves as members
of society who, as Clemencia Rodriguez puts it, ‘actively participate in actions that reshape their own identities, the identities of others, and their social environment’ (quoted in Atton and Hamilton, 2008: 122). And we did so by producing a form of citizens’ media, defined as ‘media practices that construct citizenship and political identity within everyday life practices’ (Atton and Hamilton, 2008: 123). That is, the everyday life practices of working-class teenagers in a poor inner-city area of London who were beginning to realise a sense of agency – an ability to intervene – thereby opening up what Heinz Nigg and Graham Wade term ‘the means of communication and expression’ through which ‘a process of internal dialogue in the community can take place, providing opportunities for developing alternative strategies’ (quoted in Atton and Hamilton, 2008: 119).
