Luxury of the Dispossessed

Luxury of the Dispossessed, the debut collection from poet and artist Dan Duggan, is a book of derelicts, poems from purgatory, stories of incarceration on psychiatric wards under the provisions of The Mental Health act. Duggan deals with the characters he met over a decade, from those on the acute mental health wards, to specialist units dealing with starvation, depression, suicide attempts and self-harm. Luxury of the Dispossessed is not all darkness and terror; the poems celebrate kindness in awful circumstances; a shared cigarette among friends, communal watching of bad TV, encouragement and support found in the most unlikely of places. Exploring the space of the psychiatric ward through poetry and art, this is a vital new collection giving a voice to those who so often go unheard. Luxury of the Dispossessed will be published by Influx Press in 2015