The Louise Da-Cocodia Education Trust children's writing competition
Manchester Poetry Library and Manchester Metropolitan University supported the Children's Writing competition. The poems are the best ones selected from the submissions by pupils from Levenshulme High School and St Peters RC High School.
Home
A meaningless term
It is misinterpreted to be a building
It is feelings
I wonder why I seeked for it and
Yet haven’t found it
It is a feeling of belonging
The love that raised one
The care that allows me to grow
The support that keeps one in hope
This is where I belong
Mansurah
Aged 11
Levenshulme High School
I belong in Bangladesh
I belong in Bangladesh
where there are cars everywhere
where all you can hear are beeping
sounds
where there are sadly a lot of poor
people
where all you can smell is the gas
coming out of a car
where there are mosquitoes trying
to suck your blood everywhere
where everything is cheap
where there can be loads of animals
where it’s very hot
I belong in Bangladesh
Khadijah
Aged 12
Levenshulme High School
Sense of belonging
I was stung a hundred times
Into playing a role not of mine
Deceiving the life,
Which was on the other side of self.
This encounter with hypocrisy in
meditation
Was very gratifying.
I begin, trying a repetitive motion
Of my hand to ward off evil,
And find a parallel home for a second
thought.
At night I travel to galaxy of waste,
The perfect paradox of failure
Where time clones a beautiful mistake
Which will hop from man to man.
So confide in yourself for that sense
Of love and protection
In learning to belong to yourself.
Karia
Aged 16
Levenshulme High School
I am me
Everyone has their own special identity something that makes them far more interesting than anybody else.
I lived in a city named Douala a place so special to me, like a second home. I am more than just a what people make me out to be. I come
from a land of beauty and wonder where the sun always shines and brings about a smile on my face that is as bright as the day.
My love for my own country is deep rooted like the splendid crops and nature that goes along for miles. The lovely people grinning from ear to ear, enjoying the local food as though it is an extravagant meal.
My family's booming laughter fills a room we enjoy each other's presence and company, it feels like magic is in the air uplifting bring me hope and joy helping me get through the day. My country holds the key to my heart, it is the one place where I feel as though I am truly me.
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Any perils I can face with my family by my side as we are more than just a country of beautiful animals, colors, and people we are a symbol of togetherness and unity.
We are a part of a small community one that is underappreciated and taken for granted. Me and my family live in a small town called New Bell someplace outstanding and unique in an extremely unique
way.
It's vibrant, colorful, and full of life everything about it radiates positive energy. It is a place where my culture is more than just culture its your way of life and its more than just something that changes throughout history it becomes your everyday and changes you for the better.
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Me my culture and I are special, exceptional, and remarkable. I am me and am more than enough.
Eren
Year 10
St Peter’s RC High School
Where do I belong?
Where do I belong? The main topic everyone asks themselves at one point in their life time.
In world of endless possibilities of communities which one do I slide in place.
Well for me I not sure yet
Being 13 and naive I have no idea where I belong.
People say school is a community but I leave in 2 academic years.
The feeling of having to be in a community stressing me out because honestly, I have no idea.
People say not belonging is being an outcast
Am I an outcast in a place I am highly involved in?
The words crossed my mind as I am in a fixed state begging to be in a community.
Begging to be somewhere that I can feel a part of. Accepted.
Where do I belong? Well, I am not sure yet.
But the question to ask yourself is
Where do you belong?
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Debbie
Year 9
St Peter’s RC High School
The Beauty of Belonging
I cast my eyes upon the city, peering over at the world from the golden rim of my teacup. As far as the eye could see, everyone and everything playing their part, each fulfilling their own unique purpose. Children laughing and playing in the streets, workers sawing wood or laying bricks, hares lolloping across endless emerald fields and birds soaring through the sapphire sky, high above. All of this was meaningless. And yet, in a world where, no matter how hard we try, we can never escape the lies that shape society, isn’t the best thing to cause as much happiness as we can in our short lives? How can we do this is we just eradicate and shame and lie?
You can dedicate your entire existence to the search for an answer, but, even if there is one, will you ever find it? Can humanity really solve a problem that goes beyond the boundaries of our own laws of logic? No. This is my belief. And even that belief in itself is meaningless, for every individual has their own ideas and reasons for living.
But who am I? Where do I belong. Am I dancing with the masses as they sing their silent song?
From a young age, I knew I was a black woman. I had ‘black features’ and spoke like ‘an African would’. I had gravity defying hair that sat like a cloud above my head. My lips wide, plump and protruding. My skin umber and original. I was picked at and poked. Always provoked and treated like an outcast.
I was different. Until I wasn’t.
I moved back to Lagos where I was finally accepted. Our hair defied together. Our tongues sang an ancient song and everyone was loved. We were connected.
But I had to leave after a while. I will never forget their love and their smiles. There hospitality and love of my name. The way they treated me like I was one of them. I knew that this place would always be my home. My safe space and my family.
I was loved, I was beautiful, I was normal and I was natural.
I belonged.
Sarah
Year 9
St Peter’s RC High School