Page 16 - Poze Magazine Vol.31(ATR-4 months)

“Candy Cotton Kid and The Faustian Wolf” is another challenging
epic poem that has the running theme of abuse to enlighten the

reader, listener or viewer of the performance when it takes to the
stage. When I looked at all of my work recently, as one big package,
I realised that I have tackled all kinds of abuse and it is a legacy to

those who are abused and their cries echo throughout my work.

My recent connection with the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Children) here in the UK has been an eye opening experience for
me, as they are interested with the work I am doing surrounding child abuse.
This is a charity with an emergency helpline for children and it requires

constant funding and support https://www.nspcc.org.uk/. I am hoping - this
year - I will be able to help them. The NSPCC read my poem “Beasts and

Priests” said they’re very impressed with the work I am doing to raise
awareness and help protect children. This poem I used to perform in public I
would ask the audience to close their eyes and then begin the performance.

“Candy Cotton Kid and the Faustian Wolf” will have a profound effect on any
audience and I have incredible ideas to portray the troubled life Sylvia Plath

endured which led her to tragic suicide. I am already brainstorming with the
Director of the Margot Fonteyn Academy and we are very compatible with

ideas and plans for this epic choreography and production. I can’t say too
much but this is going to unfold and be a masterpiece!

When this epic poem was first published it gained a short mention in the Times

Literary Supplement and comments about it made their way into a number of
regional newspapers and periodicals. It was a conversation piece. What I found

most interesting is: a number of writers and people interviewed about Plath’s
husband Ted Hughes – who left Sylvia with two children and started a new life with
another woman – seemed to be deeply in denial about the enormity of Ted

Hughes’ abuse of Sylvia. The woman he left Sylvia for ultimately had a child with
him and she killed herself and the child! Yet still there is this denial and lack of

wisdom and a kind of manufactured, collective, planned denial about this tragedy
as though Ted Hughes were the victim! I approach this story from a very different
perspective and will continue to do so. This will be a beautiful ballet production but

it will pull no punches and it will express the darkest parts of Sylvia’s life with
respect and revelations within the powerfully present creative emphasis. I have no

reservation about Sylvia’s guidance and presence with myself and the Director of
the Margot Fonteyn Academy. This is a story that has to be told within the
framework of this radical ballet performance.