Poems from the Unconscious by Phil O'Neill

Phil O'Neill explains the genesis of his collection of poems in an interview with the Times of Tunbridge Wells:

"My paternal grandparents were imprisoned for child neglect in 1923. Their ten children ended up in different places, some on the streets.

"My dad was put in an approved school and his two brothers, Dennis and Terry, were put in a foster home on a farm in Shropshire.

"Their foster parents abused my uncles and eventually Dennis was brutally beaten and starved to death aged just 12 in 1945."

I first came across the story of Dennis O'Neill in a book by Bob Holman that came into the office for review. It praised the work of Phil's father, Tom O'Neill, as a residential social worker and mentioned Dennis's death.

The Shropshire connection made me want to know more, so I started to research it. In those days that meant looking up microfiche copies of The Times in the university library, and these showed that it really was, as Phil O'Neill says in his interview, "the story that took the war off the front pages".

Phil says of his collection, Poems from the Unconscious:

"The original poems relating to my depression were written while I was in a mental health crisis. The rawness of the experience is echoed in the naïve, unstructured streams of internal monologue. I left them unedited in the book.

"The later poems were an attempt to write 'good' poetry about trauma, recovery and healing rather than attempting catharsis."

Those earlier poems were written in the 1990s, and he completed and edited the collection recently, while taking an MA in Creative Writing at the University at Kent.

Thinking of his own mental health problems, Phil told the newspaper:

"I came across the idea of transgenerational trauma and felt this explained the mental health issues my family faced as well as our behaviours.

"It’s believed that trauma can pass down the generations and can affect people who haven’t been directly involved in the events leading to the initial trauma.

 "It has been documented in the descendants of slaves, war survivors, refugees, survivors of interpersonal abuse, and many other groups. It’s also particularly prevalent in victims of child abuse.

"The idea is that not only can someone experience trauma, they can then pass the symptoms and behaviours of trauma on to their children, who then might further pass these along the family line. A ripple effect, if you like."

Phil says he hopes that Poems From the Unconscious will help others with their mental health. He will donate the profits from his book to Mental Health Resource, a charity supporting wellbeing in Tunbridge Wells:

"I hope from reading my book, it will help those with depressive illness and an appreciation of art for art’s sake and the power of poetry in healing."

Poems from the Unconscious: Reflections on Trauma, Recovery and Healing by Phil O'Neill (illustrated by Agatha O'Neill) is on Amazon UK and can be ordered from bookshops.

The best introduction to the story of Dennis O'Neill is the radio documentary made about his brother Terry, who was also at that farm in Shropshire and survived the ordeal. Beware: it is a terrible story of abuse.

It's title, The Mousetrap and Me, comes from the fact that it was this case that gave Agatha Christie the inspiration for her record-breaking play.

And there is plenty on the Dennis O'Neill label on this blog, including my discovery that the case led to another successful West End play, No Room at the Inn.