Schoolbag

I just love this because I think there is another poem about a pen that is very similar. It’s just taking this thing that is used every day and giving it a voice. The first thing we are in to is abuse, thrown to the bedroom floor, I wonder why I’m treated so badly and the mashed mouldy banana. It’s straight in to all of the damage and all of the negative things that can happen. And through this poem you get a sense of the brutality of teenage life, the callousness of secondary school and how it’s kind of a brutal place. ‘Kicked, thrown and shoved,’ people are scarred by their experience and you use this schoolbag to speak about that a little bit. And those two really heart-breaking questions ‘why am I hated, why am I disliked.’ I think at the centre of every person we felt that at some time. And I loved the positivity at the end ‘Is it because I spend most of my time in the place they despised or the memories woven in to my seams.’ So it’s like the schoolbag knows and holds the history of the place and understands. And I think in some way it’s an admission that you understand, you know this place so well and you’ve had the experience stitched in to your seams. And it’s like there’s a sense of maturity and distance, having this perspective to be able to empathise with the schoolbag is really cool. I think the image or idea of memories woven in to my seams is really beautiful compared to the brutality of just being thrown to the bedroom floor or to have scars, for the bag to be scarred. You’ve got this in opposition to that, scarring image we have the memories woven in to my seams, which talks about the gentle aspects of education, the careful craft of it. To have memories woven in is a really beautiful line. So well done.