The following two poems are about two of the many sides of being an ESOL teacher today. They highlight some of the joys of laughing with people from all over the world and some of the struggles especially with the constant reminders of hostile and racist immigration policies. I wrote them in an emotional stupor as I realised how much I loved my job whilst almost drifting off beyond exhaustion on the bus ride home. They were written directly one after the other, to be read one after the other. They need each other to exist and to matter.
by mymona bibi
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There are more letters than that,
In that word,
Silent,
Heavier than the letters you wait for,
Without understanding the terms and conditions.
And I'll lift them up for you,
So, you can see all that you are,
And all that you could be,
Coz you should be,
Granted asylum,
Your papers we filed them.
Your palms sighed when I,
Assigned them,
Homework.
The yellow forms,
Do you remember?
You signed them.
Behind the monitor,
You chit and you chat and your
Eyelids bat,
Away the memory of your journey.
I adjust the broken thermostat before,
You ask,
'please, teacher,
What is that?'
It's the cold creeping into a windowless building,
It's the subject freezing the object,
And the superlative is hiding in the corner,
Behind an f-word.
I say all this,
And we both know,
The vocabulary is swimming in the air.
In limbo between my voice,
The last 30 years of your life,
And your exam paper.
'What's missing before your noun?'
'I don’t know teacher.'
I've said it before to you,
From entry 1 to level 2,
I've said it before.
And I'll say it again.
An article!
articles and ARTICLES
God I've not eaten breakfast!
And articles and articles and articles
And I won't have time for lunch.
Did I remind you about,
The articles and articles and articles?
against immigration
Dinghy and invasion
Sting me and enrage me.
Cling onto an insane version of me
That writes,
With no ink.
On an island, that couldn't
Sink,
Any lower.
We can't ask why we are so hated,
Coz we don't have time for that right now.
Someone else is sick,
And the register needs to be updated.
"Where's Muhammad?"
"He's not been in for a few lessons."
"I hope he's alright."
I reply as the students pour in,
And the silence lessens.
Recreating Joy
Handing out leaves of gap fills,
And trunks of dictionaries.
In front of this bewildered and confused person.
We write ideas and in between the translator app,
And the keyboard tap,
And the printed sheet with faint ink,
We find each other.
I find the voice of a middle-aged lady in a desert city,
Teaching me tajweed, qalqala and ghunna,
In 38°C,
When I was too preoccupied with puberty to notice her caring smile.
And she found her niece in my round face and low, determined voice.
Two memories lost in dry, scorching cities,
Found in an elongated room in Elswick, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
And besides memories, do you know what else hides in this room?
What else do we work hard to create and recreate?
Joy.
Like is it more yellow or yellower?
Doesn’t matter!
Coz we’ll repeat it again and again,
Barely able to teach it,
None of us can defeat it.
Until we burst into a fit of giggles.
A water balloon so large it,
Threatens to douse us all in amusement.
Laughter booms at the strange words that even a native,
Finds foreign.
We leave the room behind.
We meet again on littered streets,
Equally lost in this city new to us both.
We decipher the map together and,
Conquer the journey ahead.
At least the next 20 minutes are clear,
It isn’t filled with suspense,
When we’re united now and here,
The future will make sense.