Hear Us is the Mental Health user group for the London Borough of Croydon. One of the aims of Hear Us is to ensure the voices of service users are heard.

‘Poetry is a way to help us express our feelings, emotions, hopes and dreams, and a way of painting a picture in the mind of the reader that the writer is trying to express.’ - Al

Every year Hear Us holds a Poetry Competition. Anyone who has personal experience of mental health issues is welcometo enter. There is a winner from every competition plus 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place entries and the winning entry is published on the Hear Us Website (www.hear-us.org) and in our Quarterly Newsletter, all four receive certificates. However, the standard is very high and in putting together this booklet, we hope to give other people the opportunity to enjoy some of the diverse and talented writing that we have received.

This book contains all entries from the 2007-2008 Poetry Competitions. Themes were Recovery (2007) and Spring, Nature and Beauty (2008).

Hear Us would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has sent in their Poetry, thank you to the judges Jean Wallace, John Owens etc for their time and input, and to Al for putting this book together.