THE healing power of poetry was celebrated at a mental health awareness night which saw people recovering from mental illnesses share their stories.

Members of Bury Involvement Group (BIG) read from the organisation’s newly-published anthology BIG in Poetry at an event to commemorate World Mental Health Day.

Voluntary organisation BIG runs groups supporting people suffering from mental illness to manage their conditions and aims to reduce stigma and raise awareness.

Martin Shepley, aged 38, has bipolar and obsessive compulsive disorder and put together the poetry collection after beginning the project as an online blog.

He said: “I had the idea to get the book together because I wanted to take down everyone’s experiences.

“Anybody who speaks can be a poet, and if people can write down what is bothering them it is like a diary.

“The blog started in October 2012 and was a cocktail of ideas, with people submitting poems from as far away as America.

“It has been amazing to publish it and the reading itself was fantastic.

“People got up who basically had very little confidence but over the medium of poetry were able to articulate things and open up about things they perhaps couldn’t before.”

BIG volunteer Sarah Morris also contributed to the collection with her poem “Perfect, Perfectly Me”.

She said: “Poetry gives people the opportunity to express their feelings and I had never written a poem in my life but really enjoyed the experience.

“When people submitted poems from across the world, that showed suffering is the same the world over.”

Frances Halligan, chairwoman of BIG, said service users were encouraged to launch their own projects.

She added: “Our volunteer consultant psychologist says, apart from medication, talking is the best therapy for mental illness.

“When people have deep issues they may feel they cannot talk about them, but the written word is a way of expressing what they are feeling and getting this on paper can be very therapeutic.

“Contributors have said it has been amazing to feel they are no longer alone and can relate to other people feeling the same thing the world over.”

“BIG in Poetry: Experiences in Mental Health” is available from Amazon at £4.50, with all proceeds funding Bury BIG support services. For more information, go to bury involvementgroup.org