Author: Michal Tucker, 8th Grade
Bullets soar overhead, like planes taking flight.
And up in the sky, the sun shines bright.
But inside, I feel dark as night
As we try to escape with all our might.
We start to run,
But are quickly stopped,
By the thundering sound
Of a bomb just dropped.
We crouch back down,
Looking around,
For a way to escape,
Our war-torn town.
Here in Kurdistan,
We are unknown.
No nationality,
Or country of our own.
They harass us and fight,
Over who gets our land.
Leaving us without a home,
And where to go unplanned.
When we finally flee,
I should be filled with glee
But I want to go back home,
Not be some poor refugee.
We’ve reached a new country
By the name of Turkey.
And although we’ve escaped,
I still feel unfree.
Ma says be grateful
That we’re out of the fight.
But how can I,
When there’s no food in sight.
We mourn our losses,
Tightly cramped in this tent.
Feeling nothing but sorrow,
The war leaving us in torment.
Now there’s nothing left to do
But to just sit here and wait
Hoping for a chance
To get out of this state.
Overview of student project:
Eighth grade English students at KIPP DC: KEY Academy considered the challenges of fictional and real refugees in their fall unit, centered around a study of the novel Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. The novel tells the story of a young Vietnamese girl and her family who are forced to flee their home during the fall of Saigon and ultimately begin to build a new life for themselves in Alabama. At the end of the unit, students used their knowledge of free verse poetry to write their own narrative poems that captured the universal refugee experience.
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