Eminem-inspired rapper-poet says writing saved his life

A rapper-poet who began writing to escape intrusive thoughts has said the process "saved my life".

Duke Al Durham kept his poems secret for years, but now hopes they will help others.

The 27-year-old, from Sully, Vale of Glamorgan, has called for a National Poetry Library for Wales.

The Welsh government said the National Library of Wales was already home to the country's literature and poetry collections.

Mr Durham, who has obsessive compulsive disorder and whose stage name is Duke Al, wants to make poetry more accessible.

He began writing aged 11 after listening to US rappers Eminem and 50 Cent.

"I use it as an escapism, as a therapy," he said.

"Without writing I don't know where I'd be, to be honest with you."

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He kept his work to himself for years, because he "didn't want to tell anybody how I was feeling, because I thought I'd be labelled as crazy or people wouldn't understand, so the pen to the page was my outlet".

He added: "I feel like if I didn't have that I don't know what I would have done to cope. I didn't show my poetry to anybody until years later so I feel that creativity was there for me and potentially saved my life."

Duke Al Durham was inspired to write by rappers such as Eminem

Children's laureate Wales Connor Allen, only realised as he got older that poetry was not just for the posh.

His love of poetry came from listening to grime and rap.

The 29-year-old from Newport said: "I thought it was really elitist and classist so I thought it was only posh people or really intellectual people who could do poetry really eloquently."

He did not feel verse was for "a working class kid from a council estate".

"If you look at the likes of Tennessee Williams and all the other poets who are amazing, you have that stereotype that it's beyond our reach as every day working class people.

"So that was a barrier in itself. This is why I think a National Poetry Library in Wales is key.

"It's about having a place that links poets, and shows music is part of poetry too, and shows it's for everyone."

He added: "I hadn't heard of the National Library for Wales and if I hadn't, then other people my age won't have.

"I've got great respect for Welsh poets like Dylan Thomas, for example, but my kind of poetry and lots of modern poetry is totally different and we need to recognise and celebrate how poetry is evolving - whilst remembering and learning from great poets of course."

Poet Gwyneth Lewis dubbed the lack of such a library a "national scandal"

The bilingual work of poet Gwyneth Lewis appears on the front of Wales Millennium Centre.

She said: "It's a national scandal that we don't have a National Poetry Library because we like to think of ourselves as a nation of poets and so forth.

"Well, it's rubbish if we don't have a centre for that and a focus for it to grow."

Ms Lewis said Scotland and England already had poetry libraries and so Wales was "behind the game".

She added: "Poetry isn't something that is just in the pages of books - it's a thing that's active, it's a performance, it's a way of imagining the future, the past. It's at the centre of the health of our national life."

The Welsh government said any proposal for this would be "for the National Library, Literature Wales, the Arts Council of Wales and the Books Council of Wales to consider".

Pedr ap Llwyd, chief executive and librarian at the National Library of Wales, said its poetry collection was "unrivalled and extensive" and accessible to anyone.

He added: "I would welcome the opportunity to explore with our poets ways that we can work together to increase awareness of our national poetry collection and realise its potential to inspire creativity and enrich lives across Wales and beyond."

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