Mary Baker's poem about mental illness shared on World Mental Health Day

It was in 15-year-old Mary Baker's writing that the loneliness and pain of her illness was revealed after she took her life in 2011.

Mary wrote The Key as part of a compelling anthology for a Year 9 English assignment.

Struggling to find answers in the terrible anguish of their loss, her parents stumbled across excerpts from her school work.

Without the discovery of her poetry, Annette and Stuart say they would never really have understood what was happening to their beloved daughter.

"My overwhelming feelings were sadness, understanding and gratitude," Stuart writes in a reflection that will accompany Mary's poem in a published anthology of those with lived experience of mental illness.

"The poem doesn't offer hope of recovery and the sadness for me is in understanding that our ultimately failed attempt to return Mary to full health inflicted a very heavy toll on her emotional well-being."

Keeping Mary's legacy alive is the cornerstone of Albury's Survivors of Suicide & Friends, which has launched an evocative campaign for Mental Health Week.

Award-winning poet and 2021 Winter Solstice guest Evelyn Araluen recited Mary's poem in a powerful video posted to Facebook today to mark World Mental Health Day.

Araluen describes Mary as an "incredibly talented young poet, whose work spoke to a deep sensitivity of feeling and a strong command of language even at her very young age".

"It's a very tender and delicate thing to read Mary's poetry," she says.

"To know that it spoke to an intensity of feeling of isolation and enormous difficulty ...

"We'll never truly be able to give everybody everything that they might require to take themselves out of the darkest of places but with support, with solidarity, with care and with love they might be able to find a way to speak from that place.

"Mary spoke from that place; her work is a gorgeous testament to the power of poetry to articulate the deepest and darkest of feelings ..."

Tragically, says Araluen, there are still so many stigmas attached to mental health - stigmas "I don't think will ever go away no matter how much love and generosity is currently being poured out to these sorts of initiatives".

During the film, Araluen pays tribute to Mary's parents and their work in attempting to "speak across the difficulties and the suffering they know so many out there will be experiencing ...

"It is the most enormous act of solidarity and it should be absolutely commended - the energy it requires is enormous," she says.

"Poetry, literature, writing, the arts; they are all there ... as a tool to speak across the unspeakable."

Annette believes now is the right time for Mary's poem to be published as part of the collaboration with Red Room Poetry.

"That Mary was unable ever, even in the depths of her illness, to reveal her pain and suffering leaves me as her mother with deep regret and sorrow," she says.

"In this I believe she was protecting us from the knowledge that one day she would fly away.

"I consider her poetry and prose about mental health as a gift and it has been the catalyst for our activism.

"Some have said she's left a legacy."

The group that has delivered the soul-searing Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice for the past eight years has launched a ground-breaking campaign to mark Mental Health Week.

Poets with a lived experience of acute mental illness will share their work through the Survivors of Suicide & Friends (SOS&F) Facebook page, October 10 to 17.

The Albury-based group has teamed with Red Room Poetry, Australia's leading organisation for fostering and promoting poetry, to create an evocative awareness campaign for this week.

A video presentation from five poets with lived experience of mental illness and suicidality will be shared online each day with Anna Jacobson to feature in a presentation on Monday.

Jacobson will present Listen to your patients, a poem that "creatively interrogates systems of treatment for mental illness, with an emphasis on prescription medication and their effects on the individual".

She will be joined by Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Anna Jacobson, Ruby Hillsmith, Mohammad Awad, and beatbox artist Hope Haami.

There will also be two readings by Evelyn Araluen, who was part of this year's Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice.

Araluen believes poetry is a tool to "speak across the unspeakable".

One of Araluen's readings is close to the hearts of SOS&F founders Annette and Stuart Baker - a poem called The Key, written by their 15-year-old daughter Mary before she took her life in 2011.

The Bakers are part of national advocacy group Australians For Mental Health, which aims to highlight crucial issues on mental health and agitate for change.

The theme from Mental Health Australia for World Mental Health Day on October 10 is: 'Look after your mental health, Australia'.

The SOS&F film initiative is supported by Nomad Films and MAD Poetry, which creates a safe writing space for those with lived experiences of mental health issues.