Students bridge the generations by penning their views of the world and taking them into the community

JUST had a row with your mum and dad? Instead of slamming the bedroom door, try sitting down and writing a poem about it – then you too could enjoy success in the annual poetry competition at Haverstock School.
Organised by the English department at the school in Crogsland Road, Chalk Farm, and the Roundhouse performance venue, the competition is now in its sixth year. This year it was extended to include contributions from older poets for the first time.
Performance poet Jacob Sam-La Rose led workshops with pupils from Carlton, Holy Trinity and St Silas, Rhyl, St Michael’s and Primrose Hill primary schools, as well as Haverstock students.
Pupils visited the elderly users of Charlie Ratchford Centre in Belmont Street, Chalk Farm. and Castlehaven Community Centre in Castlehaven Road, Camden Town.
Mabok Wek, 11, found writing much easier after the workshops.
He said: “We got taught how to describe our emotions by thinking about our senses. We thought of an emotion and then thought: If you could touch it, how would it feel? If you could taste it what would it taste like?”
His resulting poem described a long-distance relationship between New York’s Statue of Liberty and Rio de Janeiro’s statue of Christ.
Poet and BBC broadcaster Michael Rosen judged the competition for the Eddie Steele-Rosen award, created in memory of his son, a Haverstock student who died aged 18 from meningitis. He said: “There were lots of original and surprising entries. The best poems are the ones that make the familiar seem unfamiliar.”
He quoted from a winning poem by Naima Kurshid, a year 6 Carlton pupil, in which she is ignored by her mum and dad. Mr Rosen said: “It finishes with the lines ‘I ran upstairs and looked in the mirror / My room just stared back’. If an adult wrote that you’d think it was brilliant.”
Winners in the Older Voices category were Victoria Griffiths-Price, George Wilkinson and Vivian Milroy.
The poems have been collected in an anthology, Shout Out Loud, You Have a Voice, which is available from Haverstock School for £3. For more information, call 020 7267 0975.

Corcovado
I am the greatest statue of them all
I, the Corcovado
I symbolise a messiah
This makes me feel
GREAT
And
Powerful.
I am never alone
At day
Thousands of people travel
To admire at how beautiful
I am.
At night
I gaze at my only friend
Liberty
Although she’s thousands of miles away
I can see her
Under the moon and stars
I can almost see her smile
I am sometimes heartbroken
Maybe someday we’ll meet
To me she’s the greatest.
By Mabok Wek, of Haverstock

Blanked
When I ran to my mum
And shouted out loud
She blanked me.
Next I ran to my dad
And stood in his way
He just stayed the same
I went in front of the TV.
He just looked right through me
I cried out loud, “Why isn’t anyone
Talking to me?”
I ran upstairs and looked in the mirror,
My room just stared back.
By Naima Kurshid, Year 6, Carlton Primary School