Adjusted

By Casey Bailey

It seems like Casey Bailey has been adjusting all his life. Adapting to the harsh realities of his Nechells upbringing – the drugs, the weapons, the lost friends, the lost hope. Finding ways to assimilate and swallow injustices and ways of being treated that no-one should have to tolerate. Finding a way to make meaning of his life – a way to contribute.
And to some extent, he succeeded. He made the moves he needed to make and began to find his place. And then 2017 happened – when within a year he lost his mother and became a father and was forced to deal with extreme loss and joy, pride and pain, as life-sized as they get and all at the same time.
This book is about Casey's journey, and is an attempt to tell the story of this last tumultuous year, when sky-high highs and lows as low as ocean beds combined to form something else entirely; when a whole new raft of adjustments, bigger than any he'd made before, were asking to happen.
Casey's poetry is up to the challenge of capturing all this. He has an uncanny ability to make simple poetic statements about things which remain resolutely complex. He can capture the extreme highs and the godawful lows of the life of a young man losing big and gaining large. His poems should break under the weight of the joy they contain and the grief they depict. But they don't. They look at their subject with the steadfast glare of one who refuses to be beaten and is resolute in his duty and desire to protect those he cares about most.
Casey is a glorious performer, whose words refuse to falter in the face of the wild emotions they seek to communicate. But it is here on the page that the true depth of Casey's vision comes through. Lows as clear as crystal – highs as detailed and fragile as hearts made of glass.
Casey recently had two videos of his work filmed and broadcast by BBC3, each amassing over 200,000 views on facebook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verve Poetry Press
• Release date: Sep 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781912565719

Book preview

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Casey Bailey is a writer, poet, spoken word performer, rapper and secondary school senior leader from Birmingham, with a Masters in Education pulling together his passion for the development of people and academia. He provides social commentary and analysis through his poetry, lyrics and articles.

Casey is most comfortable when he is consciously expressing his thoughts and feelings, with the hope that they will go on to have an impact on the thoughts and feelings of others.

Casey released the short poetry collection Waiting At Bloomsbury Park with Big White Shed in 2017.

Twitter: @MrCaseyBailey

www.baileysrapandpoetry.com

www.facebook.com/baileysrapandpoetry

www.soundcloud.com/baileys-rap-and-poetry

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PUBLISHED BY VERVE POETRY PRESS

Birmingham, West Midlands, UK

www.vervepoetrypress.com

[e-mail]

All rights reserved

© 2018 Casey Bailey

The right of Casey Bailey to be identified as author if this work has been asserted in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and

Patents Act 1988.

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

FIRST PUBLISHED APR 2018

Printed and bound in the UK

by TJ International, Padstow

ISBN: 978-1-912565-02-3

ePub ISBN: 978-1-912565-71-9

This book is dedicated to

Earl Bailey, the greatest

man I’ve ever known

and

Xander Jay Bailey, the boy

who I hope will surpass

him.

CONTENTS

i) Lost & Found

Lost In Foundness

We Drink To Them

The Last Time I Cried

Crack In The Pavement

Spirit

Best

The Diary Entry Before Your Suicide Note

I Know How I’m Supposed To Feel

Ignorance Ignored

Last Drink

Mutual

Glass Heart

Him. Her.. You...

Rise And Fall

Step Step

ii) Two Blue Lines

Two Blue Lines

Thumping

Nail Marks

Best Work

Beautiful Disasters

Apples And Trees

Search History

I Want My Mom

Pre-empted

See Saw

Questions

Footprints

iii) Midnight Theory

In The End

Multiple Choice

I Have

Crumbling

Shadow Of The Day

Numb

Forever

Casey Introduces Hannah Swings, Sophie Wheeler and Reuben Field.

Adjusted

Lost

&

Found

Lost In Foundness

I am found,

in an independent coffee shop

discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict

with a homeless woman

I just met outside.