Slaughter, TraceySelby, Michaela2025-11-062025-11-062025https://hdl.handle.net/10289/17759Beneath the Green Bucket is a personal collage, revealing an autobiographical tale — of many faces. Since the age of seven and living with a learning disability, I became at home on the white space, stirring a sense of comfort, familiarity and newfound confidence as I graced the pages. In areas where I struggle to adequately articulate the spoken word and thought patterns, I have discovered that writing has not only provided a sense of security but has become an effective way to express myself and channel my hidden creative ambitions through the power of verse. At present, I find myself in the position to at last forge my poetic ability, conveying my memoir of emotions, memories and the diversity that is — me. Throughout this manuscript, my poetry will turn a lyric lens upon sensitive matters and other complex shades, that are usually sidestepped or scribbled with trembling hands. Amongst the musings of my younger innocence and familial reflection, I impart themes that bare the unsettling reality. That is, the woman I once was, flinching in a corner wearing a purple stain of domestic violence. My little self, huddled inside a magnetic chamber, as the clanging proclaims an Epileptic diagnosis. A bullied victim of a pubescent tribe, the wringing hands of mirrored dysmorphia, as I shake the black paw of depression, pondering the void of motherhood and navigate the chapters of my grief. These pieces portray an intermittent journey through the joys and intricacies of my lived experience, using the energy of words and deep-seated recall, to ignite a creative understanding, of the otherwise cruel and mundane. Attuned to the sensory, symbolism and ambience of time and place, my poems centre impassioned voice, and seek to dip dye the reader into my peculiar existence. An existence returning to the remembered shelter of a plastic, olive brim, the green bucket of my earliest memory, a real place of imaginative infant retreat. My hard hat of mock pearls, toasted petals — and faded visions. Beneath the Green Bucket presents a contemporary collection of poems, that merge sprinklings from childlike incantation with evocations of adult trauma, acting as a palatable armour for those who view my words. I believe that in life; there is always room — for a fairytale.enAll items in Research Commons are provided for private study and research purposes and are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.autobiographicallearning disabilitychildhoodtraumaeplilepsyfamilydomestic violencegriefdepressionbody dysmorphiagreen bucketrelationshipscreativepoetryfairytalewomanprepubescentmemoriesadulthoodnew zealandaucklandschoolillnessdeathinfancymotherhoodanxietybullyingpersonal experienceloveteenhoodcolourmusicfatherreflectionimaginationsensoryambiencetime and placewordssecuritythought patternsThesis