Some People

Aside from the day job of writing this blog, I mean books, every week I teach a creative writing class to a group of teenage girls in a South London school. It's a joy, and a humbling one, as they are consistently brilliant, talented and surprising. Today we did an exercise that was so rewarding that I thought you might want to have a go. It's easy. Just read this poem and rewrite it thinking about what it is in your life that other people might not know. We were all in tears by the end of class. (I'd love to post the girls' amazing work here but for now I'm keeping everything they write confidential.) Thanks to Kate Clanchy for suggesting this poem, and to Rita Ann Higgins for being such an amazing poet (and apologies to her for changing the word 'cunt' to 'cow' for my class of 13-14 year olds):

SOME PEOPLE
By Rita Ann Higgins

Some people know what it is like
to be called a cunt in front of their children
to be short for the rent
to be short for the light
to be short for the school books
to wait in Community Welfare waiting rooms full of smoke
to wait two years to have a tooth looked at
to wait another two years to have a tooth out (same tooth)
to be half strangled by your varicose veins, but you’re 198th on the list
to talk into a banana on a jobsearch scheme
to talk into a banana on a jobsearch dream
to be out of work
to be out of money
to be out of fashion
to be out of friend
to be in for the Vincent de Paul man
(sorry, mammy isn’t in today she’s gone to Mars for the weekend)
to be in Puerto Rico for the blanket man
to be dead for the coal man
(sorry, mammy passed away in her sleep, overdose of coal in the teapot)
to be in hospital unconscious for the rent man (St Jude’s ward 4th floor)
to be second hand
to be second class
to be no class
to be looked down on
to be pissed on
to be shat on
and other people don’t.