not a biography for mike causer
After Danez Smith and Paul Violi
Contents
List of Illustrations
Cigarette lighter: (5’4/7 st.)
Slashed piercings: (5’4/7 st.)
Textbook beating: (5’4/7 st.)
History’s fractured spine: (5’4/7 st.)
Swollen brain X-ray: (5’4/7 st.)
Preface
He’s a little queer, he deserves it: (18)
Acknowledgements
(4+)
1. Growing up in Liverpool
yet never made it out
to Stanley Street
(∉ 53.4073°N 2.98722°W.)
They called him a gift from God
but where was God in
2. 2008 ?
(circa 50 CE)
the didache -
3. Homophobic Hate Crime
(9)
nights bleeding by
4. Family and Friends
counting days taken:
(0151 528 2808.)
5. When a boy touches a boy
he's too little for love but not for
(25/07/08 - 02/08/08)
6. Death.
The paradox:
(18+)
Index:
Michael
Causer 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18
Was 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18
Proud
To
Be
Gay 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18
Michael Causer was an 18-year-old hairdresser from Whiston in Liverpool. He was proudly gay and adored by family and friends. In 2008, as he slept after a house party, he was assaulted with a cigarette lighter to his legs, a knife to his piercings and beaten to death with a history textbook. 4 men were charged for murder, witness intimidation, perversion of the court of justice – but only one was sentenced to life. His family has set up The Michael Causer foundation in his honour to support and protect LGBT+ youth.
This poem seeks to honour Michael and draw attention to the disproportionate representation in media and history given to violence against LGBT+ individuals. It hopes to accentuate how serious an issue this is (especially against trans people in the UK today) and how justice frequently is not served. The biography genre typically celebrates straight white men of an often questionable moral constitution – this poem explores how one might apply this literary standard to a marginalised young person who has been taken from us prematurely, by masculine behaviours historically celebrated in biography.