Chapter 1: What led to Sam McAlister's rise in the BBC?
Hello and welcome to The Midpoint. My guest today was one of the best things to come out of the global pandemic. Her online feminist poetry certainly had a following, but it was her 2020 poem of gratitude, which was used as a poem to thank the NHS, which sent her career into orbit. She's since become a Sunday Times bestseller.
She's the UK's number one selling living poet and her daily social media offerings to her 2 million followers often feel like a morning hug. I am delighted to welcome Donna Ashworth to The Midpoint. Donna, it is an absolute joy to have you on The Midpoint. I say in your introduction that you, I guess, are one of the great positives of lockdown.
Chapter 2: How did the pandemic influence Sam's career pivot?
Does it feel like that's where things changed for you?
Yeah, I was just saying earlier today, I am a lockdown baby. You know, I'm a pivot person who just started something completely different in lockdown and changed my whole life. I moved as well. from England back home to Scotland in lockdown, well, in between the two lockdowns.
When you were allowed to.
When you were allowed to. Changed career.
Chapter 3: What challenges did Sam face while running a children's play center?
My husband changed career because we were out of jobs because of the lockdown. So completely, this is a lockdown pivot moment now. that I'm still very much enjoying.
As somebody who is the best-selling living poet, it seems remarkable that you had another life, you know. So tell us a bit about pre-lockdown.
So my husband and I owned a children's play centre, a very large, you know, with all the ball pools and the noise and chaos constantly, which, you know, we thought would be a lovely family business to run. But what we didn't realise is seven days a week. And you only close on New Year and, you know, Christmas Day.
Chapter 4: How did poetry become a significant outlet for Sam during lockdown?
It's very, very full on. So we were doing that and we were ready to move on from it after 10 years. I was ready to move on from it after a year. But we loved the staff as well. And we loved, you know, the custom. It was joyful in many ways, but it was a lot. But of course, lockdown, it was the first thing to go. Children's play centres had to close immediately because they are germ.
Chapter 5: What inspired Sam's viral poem for the NHS?
Yeah.
So we were suddenly in a position where we went, right, OK, what now? And I saw it as quite a good opportunity to move on from something that might have been quite difficult to move on from. But my husband and I ended up moving from Manchester to Scotland with no jobs and no idea of what we were quite going to do next. And the world had turned overnight.
So everything was different and new and terrifying. It was quite a time.
Yeah.
Chapter 6: How does Sam's writing address themes of grief and loss?
So you were in this state of flux and change and not knowing what was going to happen in the world. Is this where the words started to flow?
Yeah, I don't think there was anywhere else to go. But, you know, what on earth are we going through here? And because it was so collective, and I think any sort of collective experience, especially if it's tragic, brings forth a lot of poetry, a lot of music, a lot of, you know, war poems, for example.
There was always, you know, a massive amount of poetry came out after every war, quite rightly, because so many people died. were grieving and so many people were lost and so much change and words are a great way to deal with that. And the only thing that everybody had left was online, quite literally was all we were allowed to do.
Chapter 7: What insights does Sam share about navigating criticism in poetry?
So I already had a blog at that point. And I was sharing some things online, maybe an occasional poem here and there, but not with any sort of purpose. And then I just thought to myself, I'm going to write a little poem every day. And that's going to save my sanity because I'm an overthinker. And when the worst happens, the overthinker brain goes, aha, told you. Told you these things can happen.
I told you movies can be real. It felt so unrealistic, didn't it?
Chapter 8: What future projects does Sam McAlister have planned?
Like we were watching a film. And so you can spiral very quickly. So I thought this will keep me sane. It will help me and maybe it'll help other people. And it just went from there.
And then you wrote the poem to the NHS.
Well, I just wrote that poem as I do all my poems. It just went out on social media. I didn't think it was for the NHS or anything like that until it started to be used by doctors. It started in America. Doctors were using it and schools were using it and they were all taking a line each and making it a bit of an anthem almost.
Then it came to the UK and then it was picked up by celebrities who were reading lines in schools. You're seeing this on your social media? I didn't know about it either.
until I was tagged in it and you're like oh you don't even know quite and Amnesty International wrote to me and said please can we send this poem out to all of our subscribers across the world and that was when I thought okay maybe I could
do this maybe this could be my life maybe this is a thing so how much writing had you been doing and how much were you absorbed by poetry in the years before when you were running the ball pit play centre not at all not at all
Maybe occasionally for someone's wedding. So I was a songwriter in my youth, but I never quite made it. Well, I didn't make it. I don't know why I say quite made it.
I'm sure you almost. It probably was a sliding door you were about to open and then something else happened.
Maybe. It was a tough climb back then. There was no internet. Imagine trying to do things without... It's hard to... explain to my boys that you couldn't just sort of sing a song and post it on instagram and be discovered you know you had to get signed and have a music deal and so many things had to fall did you perform the songs i did yeah i wrote them and sung them and um what was your style
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