Melissa Grindon is a Liverpool-based writer, originally from Ireland. Her background
blends dance and literature — she holds a First Class MA in Writing from Liverpool John
Moores University and a First Class BA in Dance from Liverpool Hope University. Over
time she has moved from movement to the written word, drawn to the power of
storytelling grounded in truth. Her debut poetry collection, Everything Grows When You
Bury It, self-published in September 2025, is already circulating in local Liverpool
bookshops and online — a collection defined by honesty, grief, growth and what
emerges from buried root.
Her poem for the 52 for 26 Poetry Project, My Mother’s Rage, emerges from a deeply
personal place. Having experienced harassment from a young age — her first catcall at
fourteen — Melissa confronted what too many women know: the threat and violence
often lurking beneath the surface of everyday life. The poem reflects on those early
encounters, and the continuing shadow of danger and disdain that many women face,
particularly in the North of Ireland and beyond. Over the years her research into
violence against women has only deepened, and tragically, so has the tally of women
lost. With every new name, Melissa has returned to revise the poem — the death figures
rising each time.
What My Mother’s Rage offers is not sensationalism, but raw witness. It gives voice to
pain, fear, anger — and the simmering, righteous rage of survival. Within Liverpool’s
poetry scene, the piece represents what happens when trauma becomes art; not for
shock, but for remembrance, reckoning — and perhaps change.
In delivering the poem to readers and listeners, Melissa Grindon reminds us that poetry
isn’t always soft. Sometimes it aches. Sometimes it burns. But in that smoldering flame,
there is also strength.
My Mothers Rage
‘I hate dirty ‘aul men!’
Me Ma once said
‘They make me scream
And they turn my head!’
As another one looked
In the direction of me
She marched right back
And points to where he could see
Square in his face
The little old man
Sat outside our local
A complete and utter sham
‘Do you not know that she’s only fourteen?’
My Ma let’s out
In a horrified scream
But I guess they do know
Or they really don’t care
As sure they don’t touch
But feck will they stare
And the same ones that stare
Will wholly disagree
Sat outside our local
The one just down the street
Or that creepy man from the church
Who says
‘It’s just what you read’
But it’s been 30 women and girls since 2019
And since ‘17, 42
Who’ve died so violently
At the clutches of those men
Of whom they couldn’t break free
So do excuse me
to the Northern Irish police
If you really think I am being
A feckin’ drama queen
But if you insist that ‘attitudes really must change’
Then challenge your men,
And don’t blame my Ma’s rage.
Melissa Grindon
