Rare Birds: Voices of Holloway Prison

Rare Birds creatively re-imagines the rich and gripping story of Holloway Prison through the voices of prisoners, staff and others connected to its history, in order to explore some of the injustices of the penal system during its first hundred years. Natalie Scott’s meticulously researched, moving and lyrical poems bring to life well-known voices such as Ruth Ellis, Sylvia Pankhurst, Emily Wilding Davison and Edith Thompson, plus a host of lesser-known names, to tell Holloway’s story in a truly unique and fascinating way.

Hear inmates at their most vulnerable moments: Ruth Ellis in the last few minutes as she stands at the scaffold describing her executioner; Edith Thompson believing she will be given a stay due to her pregnancy; Selina Salter on her return to prison after being recorded as a lunatic. Join in with rousing suffragette songs composed whilst in prison; hear the testimonies of hunger strikes and forcible feeding; and learn about the shocking differences in treatment shown towards 1st and 3rd division inmates.

Despite Holloway Prison’s notoriety as a women’s prison, the poems voice women in roles other than that of criminal: there are social campaigners, comrades, as well as sisters, daughters, mothers, wives, lovers and companions. The collection explores many topics which are still just as relevant today: human rights, gender, sexuality, mental illness and socio-economic status, with some of the problems women faced in the 19th century being not so different from the issues they face now.