UPDATED EVERY THURSDAY
Thursday 13th March 2003
All content © New Journal Enterprises, 2003.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
FEATURES   BY ANDREW WALKER

Budding poets (l-r) Rayna Healy, Ngidi Kimtumba, Samira Sissala and Fahma Ali
The magic carpet ride of kids’ poems

The insightful and inspired poetry of schoolchildren has found its way into a book and onto the stage.

AN anthology of Camden children’s poetry chosen by a poet and a government minister goes on sale this week.

The book, called Say Magic Words ’Til My Carpet Flies, is by children from Haverstock secondary school and Brecknock, Carlton, Holy Trinity and St Silas, Primrose Hill, Rhyl, Richard Cobden, St Michael’s and Torriano primary schools. BBC broadcaster Michael Rosen, whose children attended Haverstock, and schools minister David Miliband, a former pupil, selected the poems for the book.

Children were inspired to write the poems by a troupe of performance poets: Adisa, Fatimah Kelleher, Dorothea Smartt, Lennox Carty and ‘Scorpio the Nemesis’. In poetry workshops, they taught the children a lot about self-expression, assistant head of Haverstock school Nikki Haydon said.

She said: “When the poets came in they had the children spellbound. They were great role models for them. This year we wanted to work with performance poetry and use the positive side of rap techniques to paint pictures with words.”

She said she was in awe of the poems that children who had not spoken English a year ago had produced, like Fahma Ali’s poem After The Civil War, which describes the bittersweet feeling of fleeing your home for safety in another country.

Some poems were not selected for the book as they were thought to sound better as spoken performances. They will be read at the The Eddie Steele Rosen memorial awards on April 6, hosted by Mr Rosen, Mr Miliband and the performance poets. It will be the third year of the award commemorating Mr Rosen’s son Eddie, who died from meningitis at the age of 18 in 1999.

n Say Magic Words ’Til My Carpet Flies is available from Haverstock School (020 7267 0975), price £2.

After the Civil War
I can faintly remember
The sound of my language as it fades away.
I taste the orange
Delicious.
I smell the meat
And remember the last time when there was no meat.
In that moment
The animals were all around me
Just like the sea.
I remember when I was a child.
I feel sad
Because I don’t know where my parents are at this time,
Because almost all my brothers and sisters are not living with me.
I feel sad
Because of the civil war existing.
I am very happy
To live in the UK,
The beautiful pleasure that UK people have given me.
I am very happy
To live in the best city in the world which is London.
I am very happy to have the help of teachers at
Haverstock.
I am very happy because of the improvement
In my understanding of the language.

Fahma Ali
Haverstock School, Year 11

The rock I carry daily
I can’t forget the feeling
Of the rock
I carry daily
From place to place on my back.
I can’t forget the air
Pregnant with disease,
The taste in my mouth
Like I’ve just taken five tablets.
The smell of the garbage makes me sick.
I feel disgusted with myself.

Nigidi Kintumba
Haverstock School, Year 11

Fred is Great
I haven’t got a Dad
But I’m not sad.
I live with my Mum.
My Mum has a friend.
His name is Fred.
He drives an ice-cream van.
He takes me to the café.
He calls me Mate.
Fred is great.
Sama Cova
Rhyl Primary School, Year 4