1992 inspired poems

Susurrus AN ANTHOLOGY OF STUDENT WRITING FROM THE NORTH SURREY LEARNING CENTRE IN RECOGNITION OF OUR WORK WITH LIZ HOWARD OCTOBER 2017

Owl Skull by Melissa Marsh [2017]

ALL ARTWORKS BY MELISSA MARSH [2017]

FOREWARD We would like to thank the City of Surrey for their Cultural Grants program for providing SOFIA-C the opportunity to bring Liz Howard to Surrey. Many thanks to the Surrey English Teachers’ Association and the Guildford and North Surrey Learning Centres for additional funding. Special thanks also go to Dave Ellison, Kyle McKillop, and Phinder Dulai for their planning efforts and generosity. Special thanks also to Melissa Marsh for all the artwork in this anthology. The support of these organizations and people is greatly appreciated by all who reaped the learning opportunities.

On October 25, 2017, our school was lucky to have Liz Howard join us for a reading and writing workshop. Those students produced profoundly meaningful poems around the ideas of memory, senses, and identity. We deeply appreciated having Liz come to our school; she took us on a vivid journey through history, both personal and shared, using rich imagery, allusion, and invention. It was an honour to have her motivate and guide us.

The work that follows was created by North Surrey Learning Centre students during this autumn workshop. Their poems are a testament to the resiliency of youth. They echo powerful moments within personal history, the spirit of love, heartbreak, survival, and the honouring of loved ones.

Jennifer Aulakh Teacher, North Surrey Learning Centre

February - Anonymous The musty smell of teenagers, depression and the tattered blanket I drag behind myself.

Wandering down a fluorescently lit corridor littered with the remnants of a blinding rage sparked by one’s own homesickness.

The doors are locked, it’s past curfew9 o’clock and we’re shut out from the world around us.

Longing to feel the charcoal filter pressed against my lips, to fill my lungs with smoke and exhale my worries into the skies above.

Cigarettes are like dessert here there’s always room for more.

euphoria : the moonlit path we walk along in our feelings of ironic affection ; a love like this forbidden, yet you’d still confess it. a cold heart as mine warmed at your ghosting presence, don’t want to go back there mentally that’s past not present. oh, the feeling of betrayal had me bested , a period of depression that coincided with my aggression.

The Big Red House

by Sahil Mangat The big red house at the end of the street Was my lair My pride in a large room of old friends Familiar smell of fresh cut grass My room stocked with all I need

my heart shrinks three sizes smaller , i am now stuck with an angered face. not one, any other could take my place. i am not a trend i’m a classic, on my own pace. this must have been destined, in my embrace.

The thought of how it was taken Being told I would not return A new roof, a new school New friends to make Children don’t get explanations They get absolutes

i can’t change what’s been done so i hide my face. hoping that you notice me // give me something ; at least the time of day. i sit and wait patiently for you as does a snake for prey, praying i snap out of this trance, I WAKE.

After four years the cycle begins Another unexplained move A new home is waiting The location unknown I didn’t want new friends I liked the school I went to

forever yours, though you’re not mine , i still like to think… these are the memoirs of my flaming state.

ROMERO RODRIGUEZ [ D x Po3t ]

The truck is packed our pride intact Boxes stacked and to my surprise The red house manifested We moved back The best surprise ever

2016

by Emma Deschenes-Shearer This is my chemical romance, a cardboard box and rock bottom.

My feet bubble and freeze as my lungs fill and spill toxicity.

Shards of glass wait for me so does my mother but I loose her as I loose myself for I am poison.

How could I lose family?

How can I lose home?

How can I lose hope?

How could I loose myself?

Spun in darkness in demons I somehow manage to land on my feet.

I see my mother forty-five pound less she feeds me well now she has brought home back to me.

Purity fills my lungs generosity fills my heart as goodness fills my soul.

So Long Later

by Emily Schellak so long later past the doors lining the hall walls at dusk, and into the night faint sounds of fireworks or gunshots carry through the wind flowing over her skin in the forest in the dark invisible silence falls the streets awaken slowly filling with thieves and drunks while she sits in the grass wet with mildew she’s still waiting for something that will never change light reaches out now she must run back to her home sitting, waiting for them to come thinking everything is ok but its not it never has been

TOMATO PLAY

By Yousef Almeshkhas Gold, clothes, meat Survival teaches us about life And my father takes the right steps Like the fathers before Now early mornings Are tomato play Frosty windows before the waking warmth of the sun Sitting in patience As cars and labour melt together 200 boxes to pick up 100 are sold 100 are left Survival is opaque In the lurking distractions Modern life of phones And friend zones Life but not life Trying to make the right thing happen In all the wrong ways My father reads And I remember and remember Watching the cucumber crates Move hand to hand Now a tomato play The smell of wood and greens Is family is survival is joy.

Untitled

by Kristofer Mayert

June 7, 2017

by Levi Bassman

Mind full of the cold I embrace the chilled sharp air my lungs shiver down my spine and the snow calls me out.

It’s the eleventh hour one gruesome call Didn’t know that’d be the way she’d fall

Dad sits on the balcony of our building three stories high in orange hemi spilling subtle smiles my waythe snow turns everything into a foam pit into a cushioned world Jordan and I fall like angels after pelting grenades on the blanketed playground his mom’s green smart car a lone blade of grass in the expanse.

All my memories with Dad are good even when he was at a distance.

Cold vails to her lips bold final sips No scolding can fix And we all learn to rue the day When we kept her at bay At the funeral we all sat still In old cedar boxes Like husks Then the crying like a storm opening Flooding forward relentlessly I needed to say goodbye Hope you fly high Needed to see you do better Not crash and burn in an urn R.I.P. Angel Middleton/1998-2017

2009

by Julia Davies The open gate and screech of brakes metal on metal impacted by silence set off the metronome in my chest She lay fixed as a memory bright eyes, limp body grey fur on grey concrete the juxtaposition of warmth and indifference as my esophagus numbs, screaming Driving barefoot down the crowded highway Exhaust smoldering coals in my nose and I already know she is gone Caged, now free

Now yellow

by Sarah Painter To think back on things We’ve been through the black The rage storms Branches break Knives in the dozens Eating away everything.

Now yellow is the color I see when you appear Happiness is the seed You’ve planted And watered And watched grow Into hope.

Who do I blame?

by Simran Kaur

Closed Doors - Anonymous

Just because you left doesn’t mean you’re not here,

Hysterical laughter through the wall At video game tempo.

The children are in their zone And we on the other side of the door.

I can feel your existence in air, The feel tears your new born cries, Feel your spirit make like fog, To bless him, To love him.

I can feel your pain at what cannot be done, Like fabric I am with you, Though I cannot be with you.

I blame god, Why didn’t he think about us?

About all the ruin.

Our hysteria is different As you raise your hot, sharp hand To lower across my face like lightning.

I clench and tighten to subside from pain The television screaming supernatural nonsense While I hold the carpet My tether to the world The wet burning lasts longer that the journey home My lit cigarette a torch As I walk cold in the night A dot in the darkness How did it get this bad?

Farewell Father

by Paveet Bhullar He’s gone said a gloomy rumble laying on white sheets white as sunlight He’s gone, that grim moan voiced body as light as ether exsicatte skin dry like parchment He’s gone mourned the murmur lips betraying the body helpless to speak The doleful utterings are, he is gone darker than ever virtually shut The humming susurrus of sorrow holding together like vapor gone forever