
Friend
Poems by Young People
Kate Clanchy(Author)
Swift Press
Published on 20. April 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
128 pages
978-1-80075-295-5 (ISBN)
Description
I text you how much
?it hurts not to see you.
Here are poems about love, loss, mothers, fathers, God, rain and growing up. About all the things that poems are always about, in fact, with one crucial difference. Instead of being remembered from an adult distance, these poems were written by a diverse group of teenagers direct from their own experience. So as well as being clever, funny and moving, they are also immediate - they go straight to the heart like a text from a friend.
Most of these poems are by pupils from a single multicultural comprehensive school, Oxford Spires Academy. Many have already been social media sensations: some students' poems, for instance, have been retweeted over 100,000 times.
A donation from the sale of this book will be made to the charity Asylum Welcome.
?it hurts not to see you.
Here are poems about love, loss, mothers, fathers, God, rain and growing up. About all the things that poems are always about, in fact, with one crucial difference. Instead of being remembered from an adult distance, these poems were written by a diverse group of teenagers direct from their own experience. So as well as being clever, funny and moving, they are also immediate - they go straight to the heart like a text from a friend.
Most of these poems are by pupils from a single multicultural comprehensive school, Oxford Spires Academy. Many have already been social media sensations: some students' poems, for instance, have been retweeted over 100,000 times.
A donation from the sale of this book will be made to the charity Asylum Welcome.
Reviews / Votes
Praise for England: Poems from a School:'Not just good for school children, but great by any standard' - Phillip Pullman
'These young poets are writing their lives with heartbreaking immediacy' - Imtiaz Dharker
'I doubt I will read anything as moving for a very long time' - Evie Wyld
'Exceptional. All unflinching truths and zero pretentiousness' - Nathan Filer
'Helping us to see the world with a startling freshness, these lovely poems fill me with hope' - Sarah Howe
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 7 mm
Weight
147 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80075-295-5 (9781800752955)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
Kate Clanchy is a writer, teacher and journalist. Her writing has won many prizes, including a Forward Prize, the BBC National Short Story Award and the Orwell Book Prize for Political Writing. A previous anthology of her students' work, England: Poems from a School, was published to great acclaim in 2018. She tweets as @KateClanchy1