Friday Headlines

02 March 2018

In honour of World Book Day two poems were written by the EHS Poet Laureates, Sixth Formers Gaia Wales and Gurpreet Karlcut. Celebrating the written word in all it's glory, these poems explore what stories can do and what they can mean to the reader.

Poem by Gaia Wales

A collagen, a comma, a full stop, a line -
All letters, all symbols until they combine/
And weave into words into steps along time/
When i opened this book i knew you were mine.

Each one is meaning, its purpose to tell/
Unravel your memories, your pathways to hell/
All of your dreams what you want to achieve/
After the full stop is when we proceed.

I know you as brother, as sister, as son-
On your conquests, your battles that need to be won-
Against a great foe with powers so strong-
With each sentence a note in your conquerors song.

Disaster, fire, massacre, flood-
All crashing and raving but you rise above/
Noble hero, protagonist, vanquish the-
Sorcerer with his own brand of magic.

World on the brink a chink in your mettle/
Every slash and attack the sting of a nettle/
On your own, with a team, my eyes following-
Story dished up quickly swallowing.

Eat up the words that hold to your fate/
Chew on your triumphs and spit up the hate/
My eyes gobble your progress, the depth of your being/
My eyes well with oceans at the struggles I'm seeing.

Chapter, page, paragraph, line, word-
fly to my brain like a bird/
A reel in my mind i can see you advance/
I'm stuck to your footsteps catching each chance.

Jar in sanity, see him as a different me-
whisk me away to that reality-
Sword fights, bar brawls, night lights castles-
City streets, nights alone, read in book or on a phone.

When i put you down, my world you consume/
Will you vanquish your foe, escape imminent doom?/
So i know that by sunset I return to you-
Un-pause your time and embark on the new.

The Art of Lines by Gurpreet Karlcut

I never thought one dimension
could evolve so exquisitely;

parallels framed with hyphens that lurch
into

blankness -

a gesture to the unwritten world?

Or, perhaps, some vital axis in which we hope to lay our hearts
to rest

a horizontal conjecture

We dream ourselves hoarse.

Clutching at latitudes, one can only dream

of maps
of borders

But you see, our margins are fading.

We must envy the lines their imperfections,
their implicit critique of the abstract;

burdened as they are with sound and colour

they have moved us to theory.