Refugee Boy - Benjamin Zephaniah
Bloomsbury Publishing 2001
I'm Ethiopian
I'm Eritrean
I am cursed
I walk the line
like a lonely piece of flotsam
in a sea of coloured skins
I bob around east London
Sheila, Pamela and Mariam
foreign faces
become my guides
I'm African
I'm a refugee
I'm uneducated
I walk the line
a family moors my life
my small room means a large view
and Ruth becomes my sister
I'm African
I'm just a teenage boy
I want to learn
I walk the line
I find friends I did not know were friends
young friends
school friends
willing to march for freedom
willing to walk my line
I am Alem
I want to give
I want to be
a light
without the line
Linking to:
Poets United ~ Poetry Pantry
MY GOODREADS REVIEW
Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Perhaps this book disappoints- not outlining the tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia, not fully exploring and explaining the work of young Alem's parents, but the book is about the boy; the boy finding his own journey and his own rite of passage. We feel the incredible confusions he must feel - an alien culture and climate, a Refugee Council, a foster family, a new school and the whole disturbing, temporary arrangement of it all. And in the midst of all this darkness, appear some rather special miracles. Young people dare to face and challenge legal strongholds. An apparently indifferent girl becomes his sister. This book bridges and casts a rainbow over the many tragic chasms in our world.
View all my reviews + My liberation haiku, inspired by this book, is posted on my Haiku Songlines blog.
NOTE
This story became a play - BBC Review 14th March 2013
8 comments:
i love to hear peoples stories...and though there may be shortcomings in the book, from your verse i gather enough to see transformation and community which are def topics that interest me...smiles.
I always appreciate your poetical reviews, Gemma. You have a way of reaching in for the emotional weight of the book and give that to your reader.
Gemma, this is a touching poem and the book looks intriguing. I love peoples' stories. You have captured well his wish that there wasnt "a line"....sadly, all too often, there still is.
haunting / searching / saddness - great poem and review
It is a shout to be heard, a voice of painful sufferings. A most welcomed book as it outlined matters and aspects of happenings and culture interestingly different from others. Brilliantly crafted Gemma!
Hank
It’s heartrending how lives live through prejudice of society and how they strive for their more than bare existence, but your poem is much more; it also has hope.
We're supposed to be the human race yet we draw up so many lines. Flotsam really brought home the message for me - great imagery there.
Oh wow this is really powerful
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