Beautiful Girls

by Melissa Lee-Houghton

A Poetry Book Society Recommendation

“Beautiful Girls is not a book for the faint-hearted. The reader has been invited to a sleepover at the asylum, a night in which five-year old girls drift alone through the wards, where the mentally unstable do sit-ups when nobody is watching and where heaven is a place between “the sky and the planets” reserved for those with personality disorders. This collection will be a home-to-home for sufferers and a journey through terrible night for those who’ve been fortunate enough to take the non-scenic route in life. Melissa Lee-Houghton significantly moves us on from any romanticising notion of the ‘mad’ poet driven through suffering to achieve their full genius. Mental suffering is here shown in all its nocturnal and diurnal detail: the nurses, the drugs, the lack of sleep; the disconnect from the yearned-for true self. Beautiful Girls will survive as a testament to poetry’s force in overcoming.” – Chris McCabe

Genres: Poetry, Mental Health

76 pages, Paperback

First published November 5, 2013

About the author

Melissa Lee-Houghton was born in Wythenshawe, Manchester in 1982.
Melissa was selected by The Poetry Book Society as one of the Next Generation Poets 2014.
Her first collection, A Body Made of You, a series of poems written for writers, artists, strangers, lovers and friends was published by Penned in the Margins in 2011.
Beautiful Girls, Melissa's second collection, was published in November 2013 by Penned in the Margins and was selected as a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Winter 2013.
Her debut release, Patterns Of Mourning, a book-length sequence which records a descent into madness during a troubled affair, was published by Chipmunka in 2009 and was followed with Bite Your Tongue When You Give Me My Name, a collection of early poems.
Her poetry and short fiction have been published in literary magazines such as Poetry Salzburg, The New Writer, The White Review, Succour, Magma and Tears in the Fence.
Melissa was the winner of The New Writer's Prose & Poetry competition 2012, for her collection of poems, titled Joseph, which form part of Beautiful Girls.
She is a regular reviewer for The Short Review.

Reviews

[Jennifer (Insert Lit Pun) · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite poetry collections of this year. Unflinching, eerie poems about mental illness, asylums, obsessive love, and loss. And each poem has a narrative feeling to it, which meant I didn't feel as unmoored as I usually do when reading poetry. Beautiful collection.

[Arta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disturbing poetry.
Not really my Cup of tea.

[Amy Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry
I really enjoyed this poetry collection. It is loosely based around experiences in an asylum, but more generally on themes of "madness", grief, loss and inner monologues of things too shocking to say out loud.
Quotes:
Major Organs - "my heart will beat twice as fast/ in some poor person to whom they didn't tell/ my heartache. its poor diet of pain"
Group Therapy - "That's what we did; by process of elimination/ we discovered who had it worst/ and we fancied that we might pray for them/ if we were religious, and not just manic depressives."
No-one Touches Me - "When they told me I was mad, nobody wanted to touch me/ in case it infected them too. The doctor had my mother/ and father put their arms around me so I couldn't move/ and I squealed and they shouted, is this necessary?/ They didn't want to hold me and I didn't want to be held./ The doctor nodded his head solemnly as though he understood./ Later I gripped my pillow and prayed."
Sundown by the Abattoir - "Do you know how exquisite that sadness was?"

[Neil Fulwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw, visceral and unpretentious, this collection is a series of dispatches from the kind of vulnerable yet defiant, broken yet coherent life that contemporary poetry seldom bothers to document. Lee-Houghton captures the council estate, the hospital, the support group and the inner landscapes of those who inhabit them with a vivid and unflinching immediacy.

[Tayla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm very confused by this. At times I thought it was very beautiful but disturbing poetry, and other times was just plain confused and bored of reading it.

[Amy Welham · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You used to cry at the state of my arms, my war wounds, my tiger stripes”.

This is an unflinching collection of poems on mental health. Looking at self harm, suicide, drug use and other areas in a brutally honest and open way. It really is a great collection, my favourites were: No-one touches me, Group therapy, Compassion and home leave.
These are poems that pack a punch and a collection well worth reading.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gritty and powerful poetry, unflinching in its presentation of particularly heavy themes. I like the relative simplicity of this kind of writing a lot; it knows what it wants to say, and says it.

[Georgia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/3.75*
In comparison to her later collection ‘Sunshine’ which I preferred, you can see how much Lee-Houghton’s writing has improved and grown. However I still loved this book too!

[anjali¿ · Rating 4 out of 5]

i loved it.

[Betsy Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my usual read but picked it up as it looked interesting. I thought some of the poems were really moving.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Penned in the Margins website says that this is not a book for the faint-hearted and they are right. This collection is a warts and all look at depression and mental illness. It deals with love, suicide, drugs, sex - basically the whole grittier side of the human experience. It is, though an uncomfortable read at time, a stunning and brave collection. The poems deal in a frank way with the narrator's experiences of depression and being hospitalised. What I liked was that it showed a very human (and often positive) side of the experience- the friendships forged, the delight in breaking the rules, the sadness when someone commits suicide. In effect it humanises mental illness as well as being a beautifully written and exciting read. It also offers a spyhole into a dysfunctional childhood and adolescence – the poem "I’ll find You" in which the author imagines ways she might discover her unknown father is incredibly moving , as is the poem No-one Touches Me. This book is a glorious joyride through despair. A book everyone should read.

[Catherine Ayres · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable book. It hits you so hard and is completely, terrifyingly beautiful.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful, raw poetry.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has an unnerving way of staying at the back of your mind. Robust and unflinching.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting and beautiful, I stopped to savor every page.