Note: I don’t write a lot of rhyming poetry – not because I think there’s anything wrong with using rhyme – it just tends to get in the way of my word choices. But writing this one was a lot of fun.

Weaste Lane, Salford Five

Economically deprived;

Teenage sex, drugs and knives,

What a time to be alive.

Five hundred kids, Salford’s poor

Walking through the double doors,

Here to receive our education

And disprove the general expectation.

If we learned a bit of maths and tech

Some cooking skills and some Macbeth

And we didn’t die or end in prison

the school had succeeded in its mission.

We couldn’t really ask for more

We couldn’t really ask for Moore –

We weren’t exposed to a lot of poetry.

It just wasn’t seen as a priority.

What could we do with something esoteric?

We were given subjects with practical merit.

It was discreetly slipped off, filed away

For other kids on a different day.

We were shown just one, I think – 

Water, water was everywhere.  We did not drink.

Somehow, somehow, I became a writer

Discovered how to knit together

words and thoughts, dark and light;

I realised I loved to write.

It took a little while till I

could comfortably self apply

the label poet, but here I am;

Sharing my latest epigram.

So each time I begin to lack

For confidence, I just think back

I remember where I am from

And exactly how far I’ve come.

I remind myself that I have earned this,

even if I never learned this.