Yesterday, in response to our exploration of what it means to be a Refugee we looked at a poem called ‘We Refugees’ by Benjamin Zephaniah. We explored some of the structural and language features of the poem. We also watched Spoken Poetry called ‘Wake up.’
We will be writing our own poems and using Spoken word to perform them.
Click here to watch the Spoken word.
Have a read of the poem below.
I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.
I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don’t like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.
I come from a beautiful place
Where girls cannot go to school
There you are told what to believe
And even young boys must grow beards.
I come from a great old forest
I think it is now a field
And the people I once knew
Are not there now.
We can all be refugees
Nobody is safe,
All it takes is a mad leader
Or no rain to bring forth food,
We can all be refugees
We can all be told to go,
We can be hated by someone
For being someone.
I come from a beautiful place
Where the valley floods each year
And each year the hurricane tells us
That we must keep moving on.
I come from an ancient place
All my family were born there
And I would like to go there
But I really want to live.
I come from a sunny, sandy place
Where tourists go to darken skin
And dealers like to sell guns there
I just can’t tell you what’s the price.
I am told I have no country now
I am told I am a lie
I am told that modern history books
May forget my name.
We can all be refugees
Sometimes it only takes a day,
Sometimes it only takes a handshake
Or a paper that is signed.
We all came from refugees
Nobody simply just appeared,
Nobody’s here without a struggle,
And why should we live in fear
Of the weather or the troubles?
We all came here from somewhere.
Benjamin Zephaniah
What is the difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee?
What is an enjambment?
Describe, in the comments section, some of the structural and language features that Benjamin Zephaniah has used in this poem.
In class today we will be writing our poem about refugees. We will include poetry features we have learned over the years to write our poem. Most importantly we will use the repetitive feature of Benjamin Zephaniah’s poem. We will then be performing them with a traditional Syrian drum beat to enhance our spoken word poetry.
In the comments section write a summary about the poem.
Now write your own poem about refugees.