Yard Act team up with Mind on Mental Health Awareness Week poem

The poem is based on the story of Mel, a Mind client who lives with an eating disorder, and came together after Yard Act's James Smith "clicked with her" while on Zoom. The poem is released to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week.

Yard Act's lead vocalist wrote, "Myself and Mel talked for an hour or so about her life and the condition she lives with. We shared similar views on a lot of things and I found her to be an incredibly grounded, intelligent and astute young person, who genuinely gave me hope for the future. I took great care when writing this to do justice to Mel’s story. She had a great ‘no holds barred’ approach to talking about bulimia and what she has to go through each day living with her eating disorder. Her belief, in her own words was "if you’re going to talk about, talk about it.""

"Whilst I found this approach to be powerful, unfortunately we had to alter several lines deemed too triggering by MIND to be broadcast publicly," Smith continued. "Whilst myself and Mel were disappointed by the last minute tweaks, I completely understand the complexity and sensitivity around the subject and respect that decision had to be made. However, I’m going to post the original piece below with a trigger warning in front of it too. Heads up. When I agreed to do this, I didn’t realise I would be performing the poem to camera on a set with a full film crew. I misread and thought the filming would be more a fly on the wall doc of us meeting and writing the poem. Regardless, I powdered up and had some gloss put on my very dry lips. I’m used to playing the fool, so this took a little bit of effort. Seriousness scares me, but here it is. Also Mel was meant to be in the video with me, but she got bloody Covid when she arrived on set and had to be quarantined."

Mel was meant to be in the video with me, but she got bloody Covid when she arrived on set and had to be quarantined - here’s us meeting through the window pic.twitter.com/0FAVQq8ryP

— Yard Act (@YardActBand) May 10, 2022