For Armitage and Duffy
I’m not a soldier, suffering from war
No poet laureate champions my cause
I’m an Iraqi fellah, or trader
Or a young Gazan girl or baker
I’m an imam or a seeker of truth
Or a spent mother spurned from a camp roof
No special words remark what remains
Of my shattered country and shuddering frame
No empathetic, humanising verse
Speak of the time when our lives got worse.
Fine documentaries, carefully crafted
Fresh books of poetry, with publishers grafted
Capture the war photographer’s pain
And the soldiers who left our dwellings in flames
But none do observe that my heart is cleft
From the visceral horror of my sisters’ deaths
No thoughtful sonnets, nor ottava rimas
Conceive that drones are just terrible screamers
No stirring voltas turn on the lights
When the voltage runs out in the sinister nights
My world’s turning red, and the room grows dark
And nothing remains but my simmering heart
But here’s a secret that exists in lieu
A Nobel prize or a gallery view
Me and my people. we live and breathe
Live and breathe like you’ll never believe
Our soil sings our praise and the skies, they cheer
The ink may dry up, but we will remain here…
(check out Simon Armitage’s poem, Remains, and Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, War Photographer. Both in GCSE English literature anthologies)
