Poems inspired by Praise Song by Grace Nichols by Year 9 students

Metaphor poems inspired by Grace Nichols' Praise Song

You were a gift to me 

Caring and loving and soothing

You were oxygen to me 

Deep and fresh and open

You were an idol to me

Heartening heartening

Always smile, you said.

Choi Jaeyoung

You were

Lava to me

Ferocious and raging and burning

You were

Sunshine to me

Ecstatic and jubilant and streaming

You were

Rain to me

Soothed and Relieving and Blossoming

You were 

A rose to me

The splashes of water came to me 

The smell of your tropical and fresh soup

                      nourishing nourishing

Carry on with pride, you said.

Waarid Rahman

You are

a refrigerator to me

Safe and replenishing

You are

an iPad to me 

Entertaining and always kept me company

You are

a TV to me 

Always there when I need you

You are

a water dispenser to me

Can be chill or can be hot head

Get an  A*!, you said.

Seth Hoe

You are the reason for my existence

I would not have existed 

if it were not for you

You are the farm to my life

I would be starving

if it were not for you

You are the Nile to my life

I wouldn’t survive three days

if it were not for you

You are the sunlight to my pores

I will work to earn

to repay you

I shall return the favour

for keeping me alive

Max Wahyudi

You are 

The earth to me 

Stubborn, strong, still

You are 

Amethyst to me 

My advisor, charming and honest

You are 

A mirror to me 

Reflecting, shining, bright and dark 

Turn back the clock

To our childhood together.

Free and playful

Amongst betrayal and hatred,

You were there for me

Thank you 

Jocelyn Lee

A love letter to my mother

You were the bling to my smile bright and vivid

You were the key to my happiness that blooms like a flower

You were the planet to me loving and dependable

You have a personality as bright as a star and it shimmers like the reflexion of your beauty

You were the yellow rice to me the tomatoes redness to me the omelette smell refreshing the house. 

‘Become the better me’, she said.

Macarena Alvarez

IDENTITY POEMS BY YEAR 8s

Being Malaysian

Being Malaysian means

Having the privilege to live in such an amazing country

With an exuberant, bustling melting-pot of races and religions

Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians

Assimilating, blending

Into one cohesive whole

Hot and humid weather.

Selalu sangat panas

The sweltering, scorching sun beating down relentlessly

Like being in a massive microwave

Beads of perspiration trickling down your forehead

drip              drip

First you hear the high pitched ear-piercing sirens reverberating through the air

wee-woo  wee-woo wee-woo

Then a cacophony of car horns during the traffic jam

Traffic police on high powered motorcycles

Majestically clearing the heavy traffic with a wave of gloved hands

The king of fruits

Durian

Sweet, savoury and creamy all at once

But with a penetrating, pungent smell

That some people loathe

Or that some people love

By Matthew Tang

Being British

Being a crumpet loving British person means:

I must drink tea every day, no stop

When that kettle finishes boiling, I run over and grab it

Put my

tea bag

in

I pick up my tea

And then… calmly sit down on the settee, clutching my tea and my packet of crisps

I put on the new episode of Doctor Who,

laughing as David Tennant did his time travelling in the TARDIS

I feel at home, despite the fact I am at home

I look outside, it’s a regular day

FULL ON RAIN NO STOP

my favourite kind of weather.

I sit outside lying on my sun lounger made of fish and chips

I listen to the theatRE tunes

I think of all the bank cheQUES I could cash in if I was rich

I mutter to myself ‘Oi governor, I beg your pardon, cheers’

I take in the coloUrs of the sky

A typical England day

By Evan Partridge

Being Indian

Being Indian means

mouth-watering homemade sweets on festivals and

the lung-filling smell of cottage cheese curry and chapati

but don’t forget the active evenings spent

on gully cricket which you could probably hear from a mile away

the brown and yellow blur’s contact point being the loudest sound to be heard above the

chatters of the fast-paced players and the droning umpire

Tak

Tok

Tuk

cricket-loving people

loving it so much that when the Indian Cricket Team wins a match

whole of India goes

Sachin Sachin

                       Dhoni Dhoni

                                            India Rules at

                                                                  Cricket

Being Indian means

weekends spent on the beaches of Goa and

weekdays spent hardworking at school

but you don’t want to see the thunderstorms

that make the sounds of

Boom

       Boom

               Boom

the clouds’ dance taken form as bullets piercing through you

as you make your way with a raincoat through

white zig-zags in the sky that could start a wildfire

But being Indian doesn’t just mean all that

it also means

being passionate and hardworking like an ant

and being respectable like a monk

and being devoted to your country

and loving your mother tongue

It also means

spending time with your family

shaping memories that pull at your heartstrings forever

But most of all

Being Indian means being connected to your roots.

By Aryan Srivastava

Good one! Very interesting! Thanks a lot. ReplyForward

Love it! Good one! Very funny! ReplyForward

A poem called Hiroshima

Hiroshima

What used to be beautiful Hiroshima, now lay in ashes

Once the sickly yellow mist cleared, the reality sank in

Rubble replaced the once beautiful architecture

Their skin hanging like the rags that once covered them

Children stumbled over the remains of their brethren

Corpses replaced the pathways they took to school every morning

No child returned home from school that day

To eat the lunch their parents never got to cook

The sun, once a symbol of hope, now burned into their raw skin

A city of 300,000 innocent silenced forever by the irrationality of war

Ananya Menon

Year 8

The Witches' Spells

The Witches' Spell by Year 8 studying Shakespeares' Openings
I.
This cauldron contains
The contents of thy bones
Thou heart shall part
Thou skin shall peel
With the might of thy father's heel
With the power of the blood red juice
From the dying cries of a moose
It's death condemned by a moose
With skin from a frog
Tongue from a dog
Fog from the bog
And human blood shall spill
Atop of a hellish hill.

Paul, Josh, Imaan

II.

Stir up the potion in a circular motion,

Dip the bats eyes, thou hast a notion,

We foresee that Macbeth with rule,

Over a blood filled pool

with a drop of dead mice’s drool,

Angel and devil will soon combine,

In only a matter of time,

Banquo the monarch, we see it now,

And towards Macbeth they will bow,

Murder, murder! They will call,

Thou shalt be King Duncan’s fall,

The once beloved Macbeth, a cold blooded assassin,

Greed, hunger, murder, unforgivable sins,

Add in liver of goose to make it crystal clear,

Macbeth and Banquo, we will fear,

Long live the king,

The king is dead,

God save him

By Amanda, Aria, Annabelle

III.

Add in all the juice

Macbeth is on the loose

Everything from the jug

Let's put some more stuff

Water from the storm

Dump in some belongings from my dorm

Let's empty out this chest

‘Cuz it will taste the best

Put a little bit of this and a little bit of that

Pluck a handful of hair from a black cat's back

Grab the broomstick or the glider

Go to the Salty Springs to get some apple cider

Add some dihydrogen monoxide and some sodium

When this brew is complete we can place it on a podium

Hear it bubble and hear it pop

Watch the deliquescent flow over the top

Just one more thing which is quite long

That one last thing is a bucket of scuppernong

By Armaan, Ben & Joshua Chan