Slave Ship by Jess Layton

Heads bowed, walking, walking.

Sense of terror, sense of horror.

Blood on my hands and blood on the floor.

Ship is rocking, rocking.

Don’t cry, don’t notice my degradation.

Panic and scrambling, self preservation.

People are shouting, screaming

Starving hungry, surrounded by death.

All I see is red.

My poem is from the point of view of a slave on a slave ship. It is based on some of  the language from an extract from the war poem, Auschwitz by Elizabeth Weyser. It is quite repetetive to create a tense, shocking atmosphere. The colour red runs through the poem with the idea of blood, danger and death.

Waving Goodbye by Georgina Buckland

The thundering roar struck my ear,

That’s when I knew the end was here.

So, now, me and my family must forever part,

And split in two is my heart.

As at that point, that’s when I knew,

My life would soon be fully blue.

I always hoped that I’d leave Earth,

Along with my whole lives worth.

But now MUST be my time to die,

So to my life, I’ll wave goodbye.

I’ll try to think of something more,

Than just the blue creeping door to door,

Are my feet still there - I can’t feel...

Now, this is becoming dramatically real.

Closer, much closer, and finally here,

So overwhelming. So cold I forgot the fear.

I won’t struggle, I won’t fight,

As I think my time is right.

I’ll keep my eyes shut but I won’t pretend,

That I don’t know this is the end.

Screams, shouts, gasps for breath,

Calls, tears, and finally death. . . NO GOING BACK.

My poem has the colour blue running through it as it represents the colour of the ice cold sea that eventually sank the Titanic. I am writing as a person on the Titanic who believes it may be their time to die. I wrote the poem as to set a sad, fearful atmosphere and I believe that it has been successful. I made my poem rhyme as I think it sets the scene and makes it more interesting. I was inspired by the wordle that I made and also the actual story of the Titanic.

The Forgotten South by Georgina Jeremiah

The wind burnt branches sway in the South.

Why won’t rain fill in the desert lands mouth?

The deeply tanned children drag their worked feet.

Whilst the river flows far but the children never meet.

The mud huts protect them from the noises in the night.

Why can’t someone help them with sympathetic sight?

The innocent children have terror of realisation.

That they may never gain help from their Northerly nation…

In this poem I have conveyed performance with a call and response, one line is read and then a rhetorical question is asked by another speaker. In the next verse, the same technique is used but no question is asked in the second line. However, the poem returns to normal by the third verse and this pattern repeats itself. I have displayed the colour theme of brown as in each first line an object is used to represent that colour, apart from the first line in the last stanza where the overall idea is shown. My poem questions the thoughts of the reader when asking rhetorical questions and it connects emotionally, making the reader feel guilty but appreciate that they live a rich life or at a standard better than the one shown in the poem. I have used a rhyming technique which causes the poem to flow.  The overall idea of my poem is that children in Africa are deprived of food and water and no other country is willing to help them, they feel alone and frightened of what might be out in the bare plain lands, repetition is used with the rhetorical questions which keeps refreshing the readers mind that something could be done to change the situation.

Living in the Slums by Sophie Rees

The children assemble, waiting for the truck,

Scrambling over rubbish, hoping for luck,

The timeless minutes waiting for their fate,

It’s been hours and days since the children last ate;

They hear the truck not far away,

The children stand silent with nothing to say,

The rubbish arrives and they all start to run,

Flesh on flesh in the hot, burning sun;

The realisation that there’s nothing to eat,

Just scraps and bones without any meat,

Their final actions as they start to walk back,

Back to their homes with an empty sack.

I thought of this setting for the poem when I looked at the words ‘flesh on flesh’ and ‘waiting for their fate’ from 'Auschwitz' by Elizabeth Wyser. They made me think of the children fighting in the rubbish just to find little scraps of food for their families. I put in the idea of a red colour running through my poem as the hot sun and the flesh made me think of that colour. I put a performance element into the poem by suggesting sounds like the sound of the truck and the absolute silence of the children waiting for the rubbish truck.  

The Voice of Conflict

Extracts from AUSCHWITZ by Elizabeth Wyser

"My God!... They're locking those bloody great doors!
Why?...It can't be!"

"All eyes watching, wondering.
No sound."

"Gas!  Gas!  Gas!  Panic!"

"Flesh on flesh - clutching and tearing.
Gas, screams, death...silence."


The voices in  this poem are truly poignant; they express the confusion, panic and terror that must have been present in this horrific moment.  'Auschwhitz' lends itself to performance and dramatisation by suggesting emotion in the language used.....

cReAtE!

Create a WORDLE!

A 'Word Doodle'...

Pick two lines from a poem you like.

Think of one word that represents this each line.

Write these down.

Pick three words/ phrases from your chosen poem.

Write these down.

Voila! You have a WORDLE!

Use it to inspire your next poetic creation!