These poems about school life were originally posted on the AsianVoices Website (1997-2006), which featured poetry and fiction by young Asian writers.
Monotony
Pitter-patter rain, again
I hear him drizzle, I fizzle out, out
This learning? Droning, moaning
I feel a scream, a shout, within, without.
Silence is no monotony,
Unlike this instructional agony.
A boring worm lives better, better
And when it rains; is wetter, wetter
This rain, this pain, this pitter-patter
I Wish this tutor was a bit, ‘errr…better.
~Mohammad Said bin Rahim (Singapore)
A Limerick
I sit in here thinking and thinking
And dreaming that I am out drinking
In lecture room three
He’s torturing me
My heart, it is sinking and shrinking
~Kitty Yip (Hong Kong)
Haiku
A dreaming student.
I sit in front of the screen,
with nothing to say.
~Parkin Woo (Hong Kong)
English is…
English is a thief; it steals my life.
English can make my tongue twist into a knot.
English is a hard rock; we must break through it.
English is a symphony, so marvellous.
English is an art.
English is a slice of bread I eat every day.
English is a hunter; it kills many students.
English is very, very troublesome.
English is A for apple, B for boy and C for cat.
English is trying your best.
English is a never-ending game.
English is a bowl of herbal tea.
English is a very big cake; we must eat it bit by bit.
English is tests and quizzes.
English is money, people should have some.
~Gigi Wong (Hong Kong)
school_rules.exe
C:\absence
Bad command or file name
C:\bad_behaviour
Bad command or file name
C:\comic_books
Bad command or file name
C:\duty_off
Bad command or file name
C:\earless
Bad command or file name
C:\fail
Bad command or file name
C:\graffiti
Bad command or file name
C:\holiday_hunger
Bad command or file name
C:\incomplete_homework
Bad command or file name
C:\jealousy
Bad command or file name
C:\knocking_about
Bad command or file name
C:\late
Bad command or file name
C:\misbehaviour
Bad command or file name
C:\noise_maker
Bad command or file name
C:\obscene_materials
Bad command or file name
C:\prejudice
Bad command or file name
C:\quitter
Bad command or file name
C:\revenge
Bad command or file name
C:\sleep
Bad command or file name
C:\trouble_maker
Bad command or file name
C:\unconsciousness
Bad command or file name
C:\vanity
Bad command or file name
C:\waste_of_material
Bad command or file name
C:\”x”on_answersheet
Bad command or file name
C:\yawning_in_class
Bad command or file name
C:\zero_mark
Bad command or file name
~Kitty Chong (Hong Kong)
Just Come to Our Class
If you want to go to a noisy room,
If you want to meet lazy students,
Just come to our class,
And enjoy the booms.
There’s our monitor, who’s standing on his chair,
And our monitress, who’s carefully brushing her hair.
There are students always sleeping,
And there are students always running,
So come to our class.
Don’t worry, for there’s no one unhappy
~Ming Sin-yee, Pang Nga-lee and Law Wing-wah (Class 1E)
If you want to meet friendly students,
If you want to drink with us,
Just come down to our class
And bring along some cups.
It’s the funniest class
In the whole of our school.
There are girls playing,
And boys singing.
There’s Sam, who’s always fighting,
And Paul, who’s always eating.
There’s Alan, who thinks he is flying,
And Ben, who plays with ink.
So come to our class.
You’ll just want to scream,
For there’s never a dull moment.
Won’t you join our team?
~Wong Sam-lap and Chung Tsz-hei (Class 1E)
If you want to meet students
Who are only good at games,
Just come to our class
And wait and ask the names.
It’s the naughtiest class
In the whole of our school
There’s windows always slamming
And students always fighting.
There’s Ha, who’s always laughing,
And Ting, who’s always talking.
There’s Man, who’s always shouting,
And Yin, who’s only looking.
So come to our class.
You don’t need the names.
You’ll hear the loud noise
Telling that it’s us again!
~Cheung Kit-ying (Class 1C)
These poems were written three years earlier in Zita Yu’s English class in Tin Ka Ping Secondary School in Fanling, Hong Kong. Zita has written the following poem about her first day at school:
First Day at School
Will you wait for me here, Grandma?
From the classroom you can get a little chair.
Why are you going away?
You’ve promised to stay!
“Waa Waa Waa” I go
That stops the singing of the other three-year-olds.
In her gentle arms the teacher holds
This panicking little devil.
Her soft, sweet voice,
Her comforting words,
Made this day less painful,
Sets the future teacher a good example.
~Zita Yu (Hong Kong)
The Paper Chase
generation of anger
of all assets, animals
loves and hates ritual
but tamatgotchi the toy
a fragile egg. a feign chick
click, click, feed, feed
feeds and forgets face
the paper chase
divides the soul chaste
nature screams at lecturer.
We get out of pressure
and seek natural pleasure;
parents disapproval
and many barriers
choke our pleasure
explodes
sparkles above
but buckles’ condemnations
water pouring down from the nations
Stop!
Can’t stop exploding
our inner
desires.
In the gogglebox’s censure
power is riddle
on the paper,
we chase correctly
we may chase blindly
the final happiness may be
a jacket covers
tamatgochi and our
heads
on a sheet of paper
a piece of paper
that we fear
unrecongnisable
barely standable
after graduation–
X-ers’s xenophobia
becomes a dragon
to eat us up and our future
~Kucinta Setia (Singapore)
Commenting on his poem, Kucinta writes, “Our undergraduates are overwhlemed by the language of success and pressure. We risk losing our sense of future direction by misappropriating interest.”
AsianVoices Archives: These poems were originally posted on the now-defunct AsianVoices website (1997-2007), which featured poetry and fiction by young Asian writers. Copyright belongs to the original authors. If you are the writer and would like to remove, add or edit this work, please contact me at zijun01@gmail.com and I will promptly carry out your request.
Bows to ‘Monotony’ and ‘Haiku’ !!