Mighty lines and uplifting rhymes: The pupil-poets inspiring us on National Poetry Day
National Poetry Day is here – and with it, a chance to celebrate the amazing work that pupils have created for Pearson through poetry. Today we take a look at how learners have led the way in shining a light on their journeys and experiences, by sharing our top selection of powerful lines.
Read on for wonderful work from across the UK, plus ideas to help your young bards find fresh inspiration.
I come from different nationalities that can’t define me
Bismark Adomako Fuso, Year 10
How do pupils see themselves through poetry? For Bismark Adomako Fuso, the answer is complex and full of contradictions. His award-winning poem Nowhere, inspired by the publication of Pearson’s Belonging anthology, gives a taste of the contrasts and conflicts:
I come from a Christian country
but filled with immorality
I come from different nationalities that can’t define me
Reading can taste a lot like the shards of a broken mirror
Maureen Onwunali, Year 13
The importance of defining identity pre-occupies 18-year-old Maureen Onwunali from Milton Keynes. In a poem specially written for the Plotting Ahead Roundtable series, she explain how:
They say literature is a reflection of life.
But when students cannot see themselves in the texts that they consume, reading can taste a lot like the shards of a broken mirror.
Where do I belong?
Andrew Kriek, Key Stage 3
Andrew Kriek, a pupil from Sutton, created a new response to identity in his poem, Belonging, questioning everything we think we know about the subject:
Is it an idea,
Or a place, a location,
Where do I belong?
We’re each made of paper
Tanya Arion, Year 10
In her deeply reflective poem, Our Tomorrow, created for Pearson’s annual storytelling competition, 15-year-old Tanya Arion looked back at her life to explore grief and nostalgia:
We’re each made of paper.
We all rely on each other to stick parts back together.
My emotions burst out of me,
My feelings are easy to steal.
But I grieve for the part of my life that is over.
Countries united no more division
Veer Khanna, Key Stage Two
Eight-year-old Veer Khanna looked forward, in a poem that showed us the possibilities of a united planet, in a brilliantly upbeat piece, Into The Blue:
The day after midnight, the year twenty-one-thousand unfolds
How different the Earth looks from years of old!
Countries united no more division
Connected by tunnels with great precision
Come aboard and see the joyful world citizens all together
Chattering, gossiping, laughing without measure
Ideas for empowering pupils
Run every year since 1994, National Poetry Day is a major highlight in the creative calendar. The theme for 2022, The Environment, gives schools and students across the UK a chance to creatively engage with nature, their surroundings, and international conversations about the planet.
Earlier this year, Pearson’s School Report: Schools Tomorrow, Schools Today revealed that over 40% of teachers wish to see climate change and sustainability included as a core theme in the national curriculum, and almost two-thirds of headteachers plan to turn schools more eco-friendly and sustainable, this is a theme educators will be keen to get behind1. For ideas on how to take part in this year’s National Poetry Day, you can visit the official website.
The opportunities don’t stop there. Pupils aged 4 to 19 are now invited to enter the newest edition of My Twist On A Tale. Our free national writing competition welcomes written and spoken poetry alongside stories and essays. By delving in to the theme of Represent!, pupils could win a range of prizes, including national publication.
1Statistics from School Report: Schools Tomorrow, Schools Today, Pearson, June 2022.
Read more: our featured poems
Nowhere
Bismark Adomako Fosu, Greig City Academy
I come from rice and chicken, plantain and sugar cane
I come from imagining what things
Taste like without trying it
I come from a family that never stays
Moving from place to place
Never seeming to take a break
I come from a Christian country
but filled with immorality
I come from different nationalities that can’t define me
I come from a simulation not reality
It can’t be that people get judged because of
Their skin colour or the language they speak
I come from a race that is filled with pride and history
but most never heard or seen
Because it was never given that ‘freedom of speech’
Maureen Onwunali – an extract
Milton Keynes
They say literature is a reflection of life.
But when students cannot see themselves in the texts that they consume, reading can taste a lot like the shards of a broken mirror.
I mean only 0.7% of students will study a book written by a person of colour.
So what use is an alternative imagery?
If you cannot picture yourself in the story, what good is a happily ever after written 200 years before you?
Diversity and literature is more than just the mispronounced name of a token character.
It is the key to unlocking a world full of familiar faces.
Because too many students have found themselves locked out of the curriculum.
What good is a hunger for knowledge when you are the uninvited guests to the dinner table?
Being fed by writers who cannot cater to your needs?
There are students who are unrequited lovers; the poems that will never love them back…
Belonging
Andrew Kriek, Sutton Grammar School
Is it where home is,
Or the place I wish it was,
Where do I belong?
Is it an idea,
Or a place, a location,
Where do I belong?
Is it the UK,
Or a place I’ve yet to go,
Where do I belong?
Is it my culture,
Or that of my family,
Where do I belong?
Is it decided,
Or is it chosen by me,
Where do I belong?
Is it who I know,
Or the distance between us,
Where do I belong?
Is it about me,
Or about the people close,
Where do I belong?
Is it quite fluid,
Or a border set in stone,
Where do I belong?
It doesn’t matter,
As long as I am happy,
That is where I belong.
Our Tomorrow – an extract
Tanya Arion, Caroline Crisholm School
I don’t know if I’m nostalgic per se,
I mean in retrospect, I do spend the majority of my time looking through old videos, but I don’t know if it’s because I’m nostalgic.
The definition reads ‘a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past; typically for a period or place with happy, personal associations’.
But I really don’t know if that’s what I feel.
I feel mourning, grief, aching,
Deep pains for the girl that I see in those videos,
For the innocence maybe…
Or just because I won’t feel it again.
I don’t know if I wanna go through the pain of watching the people around me destroy themselves.
We’re each made of paper.
We all rely on each other to stick parts back together.
My emotions burst out of me,
My feelings are easy to steal.
But I grieve for the part of my life that is over.
I mourn for the years that passed so suddenly,
And I cry for the present me that has to look back at those videos to remember those moments, those feelings…
Into the Blue
Veer Khanna, Somerhill School
The day after midnight, the year twenty-one-thousand unfolds
How different the Earth looks from years of old!
Countries united no more division
Connected by tunnels with great precision
Come aboard and see the joyful world citizens all together
Chattering, gossiping, laughing without measure
Such a comfortable ride, some simply sleep and rest
As the travelator speeds forward from east to west
Little eight-year-old Veer wide-eyed and amazed at the chunnel
Would marvel at this phenomenal transportation funnel
Makes my hundred-year-old heart chuckle and laugh
Twenty minutes from Dover to Delhi, could he have dreamed of something so fast?
And all of his school lessons warning about fossil fuels and plastic
How lucky we are that we didn’t look past it
Towns and cities vertical forests and gardens in the sky
A haven for humans, animals and creatures that fly
Plants and grasses engulfing arching skyscrapers and pods
Ponds, rivers and wildlife, paradise of the gods.
Earthling families zipping on hoverboards having fun
Looping the loop and frolicking until the day is done
No more chasing grey and manmade dreams
Who knew living was this simple and easy as it seems
And as for school trips, Veer, forget the petting zoo
It’s Jupiter, it’s Neptune, far out, out into the blue!