The Days We Learnt the Memory of Shame
By Fatima Aamir
|
school-books and school-yards:
the onward march of Child Development every parent thinks their kid brilliant— but homework: "The Great Equalizer" /the chosen way to keep em off the streets they certainly won't listen to their teachers all the time good cop bad cop miss/madam EVIL WITCH the wheels of discipline run uninterrupted at home. so— pages upon pages of homework. just ask mum&dad for help. except mum&dad don't really know english except dad always leaves and it's only ever mum except mum&dad don't get home till 11 and the homework's still not done but at least they're too tired to fetch the belt. kids—it'll toughen em up this exercise in resilience so let them lumber w their lexicon so they never write a poem like this— the Incorrectness so apparent what lines? line- breaks? what happened to the CAPITALIZATION? … capitalization! rallying-cry of meritocracy or, as it's known round these parts, cream-of-the-crop-acy: teaching philosophy of a grade-school madam, who simply had enough of the rowdy Rolands and the debauching Davids, the jeering Jamals and the awful Ahmads, and sat, instead, with the kind Kianas and courteous Caitlyns, the preppy Priyas and softspoken Suleimans; read to them (as their parents already do) so that one day they'd read for her. a classroom: starched trousers, pressed & pleated pinafores splashes of BATA SHOE WHITE a class: notice! the recitations rise, fall in song. yes—the kids will sing, seize your words, toss them in an unfamiliar pitch now you're done with them: life itself will offend their NEW SENSIBILITIES their standardization, anglicization, their new proclivities but kids,
don't forget to write something of your own for nobody but all your old friends to read. Fatima Aamir (she/her) is a poet and writer currently residing in Vancouver. She has edited and written for The Talon, the University of British Columbia's independent press, and was a former editorial intern at The Capilano Review. This fall, she will begin her MA in Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. She can be found musing over art and social justice on Twitter at @fatimaaamir.
|