Ratcliffe’s Budding Poets find Inspiration during Lockdown

With half term fast approaching, many of our students have been taking stock and reflecting over the past weeks before recharging their batteries with a well deserved break. Recently, some of our aspiring poets were challenged with putting pen to paper and focus on the topic of “belonging.” This sparked pupils imaginations with many taking inspiration from the current lockdown.

It has been amazing to see these students flourish with this creative freedom and express themselves in this format despite current restrictions. We are delighted to showcase a handful of these poems below and hope their inspiration continues throughout the year when we hope to come together as a community again.

We hope you enjoy reading them!

In my bedroom, wishing to be anywhere else: lockdown

Whilst the world lies behind closed doors

I sit in my bedroom, wishing to be anywhere else.

The world is still in lockdown.

I hope for a force strong enough to intervene

To be able to see my friends from not behind my laptop screen.

Where zoom codes and wifi is no longer a hindrance,

When I can see my family from less than two metres away.

When we can finally turn on the news to not only hear the amount of people that are dying each day.

Whilst the world hides behind a computer screen

I sit in my bedroom wishing to be anywhere else.

If only the world was at ease,

To feel the feeling of flying with no restraints

Oh to be free of all trouble and anxieties

To be in the world before, without the boundaries.

Whilst the world waits for a breakthrough. 

I sit in my bedroom wishing to be anywhere else.

The world sits in wait for the final day,

Where everyone can escape from their four walls and say…

We are united and we are one,

And together we fought for the battle we won.

The world has opened its doors.

The world no longer hides behind a computer screen.

The world has found its breakthrough.

The people have joined together, 

To help make the world somewhat better

All of the zoom calls, wifi problems and two metre distance

Have been so worth it for our new found world’s beautiful existence.

St. Ives

Is there a name 

For when you want to be somewhere else

But you can’t?

Instead you are trapped somewhere

With only your thoughts.

Wouldn’t it be great

To be free on the beach,

Waking up every morning to a warm smile from the sun?

And the waves ricocheting on the sand?

Belonging to the waves. 

Belonging to St Ives.

Belonging in lockdown, needing release

In lockdown, wanting to be important,

Throwing a ball against the wall.

Reading old Nabokov novels 

And watching old ‘90s shows on loop.

Layers of nothing.

A lasagne of nonsense.

Why so much anger on nothing?

Looking at the news.

Desiring to be the news.

To change, to grow.

Alive.

‘The kind of life where reasoning plays a subordinate role.’

Sartre.

Invasion. Insurrection. Isolation.

Defined by loneliness.

YouTube on repeat.

Beyonce ringtones and Grime from LDN.

Scrolling through the socials.

Writing rhyme, time after time.

Vaccination Nation.

The line blurred.

The voice of them heard.

Throwing a ball against the wall.

Reading old Nabokov novels 

And watching old ‘90s shows on loop.

This is where I’m supposed to be?

January sales.

Amazon fails.

The voice inside my head refuses to leave.

Lockdown- ignores my wants, my necessities, and my needs.

Where I belong

I cannot pretend to like this lockdown,

I cannot pretend to like the idea of isolation

But what I can do is enjoy the time to myself

I can enjoy the the little things in life

The terrifying increasing numbers is what I hate

The constant mask wearing is what I hate

But what I love is  the freedom I luckily have

The freedom that saves me 

The heart of the countryside surrounds me

It’s verdant locks carpeting the pure earth

It’s fresh breeze running through my hair

Nothing can be better than this