Welcome to Miss Nichola's Year 8 Blog Spot!
The title of the blog is inspired by a poem by the Canadian poet and novelist Michael Ondaatje (best known for his book 'The English Patient', which was made into a successful movie).
Here's the poem itself:
Sweet like a crow
for Hetti Corea, 8 years old
“The Sinhalese are beyond a doubt one of the least musical people in
the world. It would be quite impossible to have less sense of
pitch, line or rhythm." - Paul Bowles
Your voice sounds like a scorpion being pushed
through a glass tube
like someone has just trod on a peacock
like wind howling in a coconut
like a rusty bible, like someone pulling barbed wire
across a stone courtyard, like a pig drowning,
a vattacka being fried
a bone shaking hands
a frog singing at Carnegie Hall.
Like a crow swimming in milk,
like a nose being hit by a mango
like the crowd at the Royal-Thomian match,
a womb full of twins, a pariah dog
with a magpie in its mouth
like the midnight jet from Casablanca
like Air Pakistan curry,
a typewriter on fire, like a hundred
pappadans being crunched, like someone
trying to light matches in a dark room,
the clicking sound of a reef when you put your head into the sea,
a dolphin reciting epic poetry to a sleepy audience,
the sound of a fan when someone throws brinjals at it,
like pineapples being sliced in the Pettah market
like betel juice hitting a butterfly in mid-air
like a whole village running naked onto the street
and tearing their sarongs, like an angry family
pushing a jeep out of the mud, like dirt on the needle,
like 8 sharks being carried on the back of a bicycle
like 3 old ladies locked in the lavatory
like the sound I heard when having an afternoon sleep
and someone walked through my room in ankle bracelets.
I really like this poem because of all the vivid images it contains. Some of them can be a little bit confusing,especially if you haven't been to Sri Lanka, but it still conveys a really clear sense of place through all the rich sensory details. I think it's a great response to Paul Bowles' dismissive words about the language and culture of the Sinhalese, because it brings the place to life and makes it sound wonderful - startling, and even ridiculous, but still wonderful. Something doesn't have to be pretty to be beloved, and we can find beauty and wonder in all kinds of unexpected places.
This week the Year 8 students are working on their own simile-based poems based on this simple repetive structure, trying to paint very vivid pictures of places they know well by using very precise and evocative language.
The poem that I wrote about my own home town, Barnsley, is called 'Sweet Like Crabapples'; a crabapple is a small, very sour fruit. When I was little, my mother used to pick the crabapples in the garden and make crabapple jelly to spread on our toast, which was lovely. It always reminds me of my childhood, and of my family, even though it might not be the most popular of fruits because it is wild and sour.
