*Please note this transcript is generated using an automated service and it may not be 100% accurate.
First Story Presents: London Voice.
Grant: For a lot of young people in general, but particularly students from particular background that exist in East London are so used to having their voices mediated by a standard that doesn’t really reflect their experience. And I think poetry’s one of the few places where an authentic voice, a voice that truly expresses your identity, is genuinely celebrated. And I think it’s great to empower kids in that way.
Adam: Hi, my name is Adam Z. Robinson and that was Grant Summers, an English teacher at St Paul’s Way School in East London.
I’m a writer and theatre-maker, I’m also one of many Resident Writers at First Story, England’s leading creative writing charity for young people in state schools.
For the past year, I’ve been running weekly creative writing workshops with young people at St. Paul’s Way School. You can hear them laughing in the background.
They’re a really fun, joyous group of young people. In our very first session together, they created a manifesto in response to an exercise I brought to the room. And in it they told me things that they embrace, things that they believe in, things they want, things that they reject and a little bit about their writing and their intentions for their First Story programme. It was such an inspiring thing that they created and I left that session feeling really hopeful and better about the world that we live because of these wonderful young people
You might be listening to this thinking, are young people really that interested in creative writing? Are they really going to give up a few hours of their own time after school?
You might be a young writer yourself, excited by literature and looking for ways to develop your voice.
You might even be thinking, what’s the point of a creative writing club?
Well, for us at First Story, creativity is an essential part of life. When students can express themselves through poems and stories, it’s a skill they can take forward into the future. For example, each of the forty-plus schools we work with produces an anthology of new writing from 11-18-year-olds. So, the group I’ve been working with at St Paul’s Way are now published authors.
It’s also about building confidence and a sense of self, not only through literacy but through oracy – which is basically education lingo for ‘expressing oneself fluently through speech’.
We think that developing young people’s voices and giving them the chance to speak is vitally important.
This is a podcast that brings those voices to the forefront. In each episode, you’ll hear a different writer guiding you through original poems and stories by young people.
Today, you’ll hear poems about wintry days, bustling cafes, and how past experiences shape our futures. You’ll also hear from an English teacher about why it’s so important to actually listen to young people’s words.
Anyway, enough from me, over to the students.
Zoharin: You are about to hear a selection of poems written and performed by students from St. Paul’s Way School in East London.a
Fatimah: My name is Fatimah, and the name of my poem is, ‘Should I Open the Door?’ Should I get dressed and go outside today? Should I nervously peer into the newly open cafe? Should I open the door? Should I stare at the extensive menu with its assortment of exotic beverages and spend an awkwardly long time deciding which one to choose?
Should I just order black coffee anyway? Should I sit in the farthest, darkest corner of the shop? Should I accidentally stare at the person next to me? A girl will silky long, inky hair, enchanting eyes, and an addicting beauty. Should I absentmindedly, bring out my sketchbook? Should I again, accidentally and totally not purposefully start sketching this incarnation of radiance?
Should I then get up to retrieve my order? Should I bring my sketchbook and return to my corner with both sketchbook and coffee in hand? Should I drop my sketchbook and completely spill the coffee I had been holding onto the girl I had been secretly admiring for the last 15 minutes? Should I profusely apologise and hear her reply, it’s okay with a voice sweet as sunshine, and then subsequently listen to her, gush, over the silly sketch I had been doing.
Should I keep talking to her for years and years, should I fall in love with her?
Zara: My name is Zara and the title of my poem is ‘God Did’. We started afresh. God did. A second chance, no help, no poison, just us in our home. This term we say it all, we shall not fall. No. Not again, this is what we’ve just gained, just us. Beautiful.
Fareeda: My name is Fareeda and my piece is called ‘Screams from the past’. This house is haunted. Haunted by the ghostly cries of the past, haunted by the frightening memories, decorating the floorboards. Creaking after every step, calling out for vengeance. Vengeance that I couldn’t provide. This house is haunted by the sobs of a little girl.
A girl who was once me. Her sobs echo off the walls getting louder and louder, a deafening sound of despair, full of such horror, fear, and overall terror. The walls warned me to leave. I know I can’t handle it. The noise, the memories, I can’t. I ran towards the door at a speed faster than light just to realize the door was locked.
I was trapped. It was just me and the past.
Feliks: My name’s Feliks, and this poem is called ‘Winter’. I sat there looking. I examined each snowflake, each unique, each perfectly imperfect falling. I let my mind wander and escape from the never-ending toil of homework. And did you do the dishes yet? I started to think of each snowflake as a Formula One car in a race to the ground.
I started to think of each snowflake as everything and nothing. All I could feel was the winter breeze, the cold, slapping my face, the paleness creeping up through my hands. I sat there anticipating Christmas day. I sat there imagining snowflakes as slays, one for each child in the world, crashing down with the promise of a present.
Adam: It’s Resident Writer Adam again, briefly interrupting the poetry to say it’s amazing hearing these poems and reflecting on the work that’s gone into them.
In my weekly sessions with the students, we work on lots of different exercises, some with really prescriptive instructions. For example, I might give them a list of locations, to pick at random or and a list of limitations. For example, write this as a letter, write this from the perspective of an object in that space
But what I realised about this group, is that they loved working with images, like Feliks.
Feliks: My piece is inspired by just an image that was shown to us during one of the First Story sessions, and it was just a child sitting on like just outside a house, just observing the snow as it falls.
Adam: It’s equally great when students like Fatimah find inspiration in their daily lives and bring that to the sessions.
Fatimah: I just walked past this cafe, like every time I walked to school, and I just thought it’d be really interesting to write a poem about the cafe. I always see, like every day, I just imagine what would happen. Like in that cafe.
Adam: Then, there are those, like Fareeda and Zara, who have a message they want to share.
Fareeda: The idea from my poem came from the way past experiences shape the present and the future. For example, if some events in history never occurred, the world we know today would be extremely different and that could like also impact an individual’s life, like how a past experience will like always stay with them. Whether that was good or bad.
Zara: my GCSE pick of Geography and I feel like my, my teacher really explained the fact that the earth is slowly, slowly, like deteriorating ’cause of what humans do. And I feel like this is a really great platform to like express my opinion in that.
Adam: Two more poems to go now, enjoy
Shanice: My name is Shanice and my poem is called ‘Coffee’. I Smell it. The smell of coffee so warm, so bitter. It reminds me of the grip of humanity I used to have. I’m crying, but to be honest, there’s more blood than tears. I’ll never forget to take my meds again, but an overwhelming sense of fear holds onto my heart.
My mania took my sight away from me, my friends, away from me, or how the smell of iron and coffee has started to blend so cold, so bitter. I want my eyes back. Of course I do, but it’s my fault only mine. I’m so alone. But in this cafe with all these people, I’m just a helpless man. How cool are those to look down on others?
How weak are those who entertain it? Someone is calling to me, sir. Oh my God. Are you okay? I stop crying. I’m fine. What? I can’t cry in peace. What a joke. My heart is rushing. You are dangerously pale. I must call a doctor. I’m so angry. I can practically feel my blood boil. I get out of my chair and throw it and the pool of blood splashes everywhere.
Some going into the coffee. So bitter. It all smells the same now, bitter. Who the hell do you think you are? I’m practically screaming now. Do you think I’m weak? Yeah, they do. Every last person in this cafe does crash. Great time’s up and I didn’t even get to finish my coffee back to the looney bin. Sure they have coffee, but it’s never quite the same. Not warm, not bitter.
Zoharin: My name is Zoharin. This poem is called ‘The Attic’. Someone’s belongings, her everything. I was the first owner in 60 years living next to my parents. I was going through the attic, worn down, and full of cobwebs and came across a box in the corner of my eye. It was weaved and labeled with faded pencil, but I couldn’t decipher it.
Calling Ross, we decoded the name Ann Roosevelt by curiosity. We laid some of the objects on the floor, a faded yellow dress, binoculars, and a detailed frame with no picture. Odd, right? Not being able to find any pictures and lots of renovating left to do, Ross decided to ask around the neighborhood about our previous neighbour, but to no avail.
I started putting everything back and suddenly a scream. He thought it was hilarious to jump scare me, but immediately after a crack a shatter and now there was glass on the floor. The old timey frame was now gone forever. A shriek one. So painful and daunting. I thought it was real. Was it? But there was no time for the matter.
The lace dress, once worn by Anne, was now soaked in blood from the bleeding binoculars.
Adam: As a resident writer, I can’t do my work without brilliant teachers who stay after school to support the sessions.
Grant: I’m Grant Summers. I’m an English teacher at St. Paul’s Way in Mile End.
Adam: In an environment with so many external challenges, having a few hours each week where creativity is protected and supported feels really important.
Grant: I think there’s a lot of really challenging expectations that are put on students from this area. I think they have a lot of things to balance in terms of it’s one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. Um, and so you have a lot of students who are forced to really reckon with all the challenges of daily life, school life, young adult life.
And emotional challenges that you or I might never have experienced all the while often having to do that maybe on an empty stomach. Um, you know, with all kinds of kind of challenges and pressures at home. So I think not just your usual GCSE revision challenges, but really finding an emotional maturity where often there isn’t kind of a guidance or a role model to provide it in some cases.
Creative writing encourages you to kind of form a relationship with your own life, your memories, the spaces around you. Um, and it gives you a sense of not just reacting to those, but finding meaning and purpose within them and creating meaning and purpose. And I think that gives you a sense of being able to construct your own world and put your own impression on the world that you want to see ultimately. And that starts with writing.
Adam: It’s also great to have a space where young people are celebrated for being themselves.
Grant : Young people, um, here don’t get as many opportunities to be celebrated as they deserve. I think, I’ve worked at this school now for four years. Um, some of the absolute genius and creativity and vibrancy and energy they bring to life, um. Yeah, it needs to be sung louder by everyone.
And I think any opportunity for them to not just express that, but also get validated on that. It’s fantastic to be kind of part of first story. Fantastic to see the influence that that’s having on our young people.
Um, I’ve seen kind of, not just this cohort, but previous years cohort and, um. And kind of the confidence that they bring to writing even after that program’s ended. So even some of our sixth formers who did it three or four years ago, and the opportunities they’re embracing now are incredible. So I would always just encourage any school that has a chance to get involved with a program like this, um, as soon as you can.
Adam: Thank you for listening to First Story Presents: London Voice. I’ve been Adam Z Robinson, your host for today’s episode.
In the next episode, I’ll be handing the mic to another writer who’ll guide you through the wonderful creative minds of students at Platanos College in South London.
Whaaat. The sky is blue and my aura is negative…
First Story Presents: London Voice was produced by Talia Randall in collaboration with First Story. It was mixed by Jamie Payne. This was a First Story project.
This podcast is part of the wider London Voice programme, an exciting new oracy pilot delivered by First Story, England’s leading creative writing charity for young people.
Over the course of this academic year, First Story has been working with six non-selective secondary schools in Greater London as part of London Voice.
It’s aim? To help young people develop as writers who have a voice and the skills and confidence to be heard.
Students from Hampstead School, St Paul’s Way School, Platanos College, Skinners’ Academy, Trinity Acadamy and St Saviour’s and St Olave’s Church of England School have had the opportunity to take part in creative writing, performance and audio workshops led by skilled industry professionals. This podcast is one of the outcomes of their work.
London Voice has been made possible by the generous support of The Mercers’ Company, trustee of St Paul’s Schools Foundation.
To find out more about First Story and London Voice, visit First Story dot org dot uk and join the conversation on instagram by searching firststory_uk.
