Entry #9-Refugees

Entry#9- Refugees part 1 and 2

The poem “We refugees” by Benjamin Zephaniah reflects the harsh reality of those who, for different reasons, had to leave their homeland. Zepaniah’s piece of writing shows us how refugees are looked at. Seldom do we think about “the price they have to pay”, often being victims of discrimination, rejection, condemnation and usually deprived of dignity, for they do not belong either to their homeland or the new one in which they expect to be accepted. The poem is an invitation to reflect on the cruel reality to which refugees are exposed, and it also invites us to generate empathy for them. As Benjamin Zepaniah states “We can all be refugees…. We can all be hated for someone”. By saying this, he points out the importance of being empathetic, since any of us could be in a similar situation at any time, and this idea is reinforced with the phrase “We all came from refugees”.

Refugees by Brian Bliston.

They have no need of our help

So do not tell me

These haggard faces could belong to you or me

Should life have dealt a different hand

We need to see them for who they really are

Chancers and scroungers

Layabouts and loungers

With bombs up their sleeves

Cut- throats and thieves

They are not

Welcome here

We should make them

Go back to where they came from

They cannot

Share our food

Share our homes

Share our countries

Instead let us

Build a wall to keep them out

It is not okay to say

These are people just like us

A place should only belong to those who are born there

Do not be so stupid to think that

The world can be looked at another way

The poem “Refugees” by Brian Bliston, is an accurate portrayal of the antagonist perspectives of certain sectors of the society about refugees. Creatively written, this piece of writing varies when reading it forward or backward; two polarized opinions about refugees can be clearly appreciated and this fact impacts directly on the reader. On the one hand, following a logical reading direction, the poem is a detailed depiction of the position of those who, being full of  both hate and ignorance, consider refugees to be nothing but criminals, in Bliston words “ Bombs up their sleeves” ….“Cut- throats and thieves”, these two sentences are really telling. As the poem continues, the author emphasizes the feeling of rejection towards refugees “Go back where they came from” “Build a wall to keep them out”, as it can be seen, these ideas reflect the hostility and cruelty towards these asylum seekers.

On the other hand, while reading the poem from bottom to top a complete new message appears. This new message is one of solidarity, empathy and compassion for all of those helpless people who have to face uprooting, as Bliston declares “They cannot go back to where they came from”. Furthermore, the author leaves us the phrase “These are people just like us” with the intention of making the reader reflect on the unpleasant and hard reality of refugees all around the world.

PEER CORRECTION

CLAUDIA ALEXANDRA DILELLA - 18/09/2020 12:18

Second draft

The poem We refugees, by Benjamin Zephaniah, stands as a wake up-call to us all as to how vulnerables are lives can be and how easily things can completely change for us. The writer invites us with simple and familiar words to look at the world around us in order to prevent us from becoming too at ease in our lives. Through the use of the first person pronoun both in plural and singular we, readers, can get a glimpse as to how the author must have felt as a young black boy growing up in a country that, although it was his own, made him feel an outcast. Whether it is because of our skin colour, our social background, our religious beliefs or our place of origin, we can all be deprived of our rights in the blink of an eye if luck turns its back on us.  

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VANESA LONGHI - 25/09/2020 18:43

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Dear Claudia, I think you grasped the meaning of the poem pretty well, yet I found some language mistakes:

"How vulnerables are lives can be". vulnerable is an adjetive( no plural form) so you should have written "vulnerable", besides, this phrase is an indirect question so you should have written "How vulnerable lives are" or "How vulnerable lives can be".

 

I hope my comment will be useful!

 

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ENTRY#9 PART 3

Metacognitive Analysis#9

Writing an essay is not an easy task to accomplish. Several aspects are to be considered;there are many specific steps to follow in order to achieve a good final production.In this way,writing an essay  becomes a really challenging and demanding chore. Moreover, it may well be a gruelling job if you do not have the essential knowledge for developing an appropriate writing structure and a guidance to assemble all the gathered  information and ideas properly .On this basis, it is crucial to have theoretical material to which we can refer.

 I consider all the material provided in this class to be immensely useful  to enhance our writing performances.Indeed,the whole class provided us with guiding principles  that will assist us with our future writing assignments.