This poem contains the real life stories of a number of former students of mine from an ESL class for immigrants and refugees. Follow the link and select I Have Been Stone V3. Thanks. Hope it does something for you.
http://sharepoint.lrsd.ab.ca/hockleyc/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx
This is an attempt at the text:
i sat
rather insulated from the rest of the world
quite smug, indifferent and ignorant
hard and cold
and then i heard one say
our home was captured
we fled for our lives
with just the clothes we were wearing, with no money,
and carrying our eight year old child, we walked.
under the veil of night, twenty five hours of
walking at night, and then hiding by day, we
walked. over a mountain range, through the freezing
cold and snow, we walked. with toes so frozen
that the toe nails fell off, we walked; we
walked
and then i heard another one say
we escaped from Vietnam
to a refugee camp in Hong Kong
where we waited for four years for a country to
allow us to enter, to perhaps begin our lives over
again. a refugee camp is not a holiday, perhaps
not even an existence - one chicken wing per
person per day and a little rice, and maybe a few
vegetables. hunger was an everyday reality
and then i heard another one say
i taught at the university but i learned to play dumb
because they killed all the educated
but we escaped to a freighter, all six thousand of
us; there was not enough room to lie down, and no
place wanted this ship to come into its port. one
country finally sent some boats along side to
provide bathroom facilities; they sent another
boat with rice
and then i heard another one say
i escaped but
not all my family did
for we had hidden in the walls of deserted, old
building for six days. the soldiers bayoneted
the walls, but they missed me
and then i heard another one say
they killed my parents and that movie the killing fields
it doesnt even come close
and then i heard another one say
and then i heard another one say
and then i heard another
and then i heard
and then i screamed out
cursed smugness
and then i
and then
and then i wept and cried out
damned indifference
damn
damn
(alternate ending)
and then i shook my head
and
and
and then i
and then i
and then i shrugged my
shoulders and turned off
the television
http://sharepoint.lrsd.ab.ca/hockleyc/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx
This is an attempt at the text:
i have been stone
i sat
rather insulated from the rest of the world
quite smug, indifferent and ignorant
hard and cold
and then i heard one say
our home was captured
we fled for our lives
with just the clothes we were wearing, with no money,
and carrying our eight year old child, we walked.
under the veil of night, twenty five hours of
walking at night, and then hiding by day, we
walked. over a mountain range, through the freezing
cold and snow, we walked. with toes so frozen
that the toe nails fell off, we walked; we
walked
and then i heard another one say
we escaped from Vietnam
to a refugee camp in Hong Kong
where we waited for four years for a country to
allow us to enter, to perhaps begin our lives over
again. a refugee camp is not a holiday, perhaps
not even an existence - one chicken wing per
person per day and a little rice, and maybe a few
vegetables. hunger was an everyday reality
and then i heard another one say
i taught at the university but i learned to play dumb
because they killed all the educated
but we escaped to a freighter, all six thousand of
us; there was not enough room to lie down, and no
place wanted this ship to come into its port. one
country finally sent some boats along side to
provide bathroom facilities; they sent another
boat with rice
and then i heard another one say
i escaped but
not all my family did
for we had hidden in the walls of deserted, old
building for six days. the soldiers bayoneted
the walls, but they missed me
and then i heard another one say
they killed my parents and that movie the killing fields
it doesnt even come close
and then i heard another one say
and then i heard another one say
and then i heard another
and then i heard
and then i screamed out
cursed smugness
and then i
and then
and then i wept and cried out
damned indifference
damn
damn
(alternate ending)
and then i shook my head
and
and
and then i
and then i
and then i shrugged my
shoulders and turned off
the television
