Hope - 1993

I have to confess I was a bit stuck for blog material this week, as I am in dissertation write up mode at the moment! There is no exciting lab work, no fieldwork (all the others are in Spain as it is that time of year again), just hours and hours in the library… That was, at least until I received an email last night informing me that I had been shortlisted for the inaugural Stephen Lawrence poetry prize.

An email came around about the competition two weeks ago, and as I do pen the occasional poem (though not as many as fellow blogger Naz), I thought about entering. 

Here is a little bit of background on my poem, entitled '1993.' I first came to the University of Greenwich for my undergraduate degree in 1993, and arrived to find that Stephen (who would have been in the same year as me) had been killed not long before. 

The awful loss and senseless aftermath of his passing were so poignant to those of my generation, and I hoped that some of those thoughts and feelings would come through in my poem.

I will be attending the poetry reading and presentation at 5.30pm this Friday at the Greenwich Maritime Campus. I’m very curious to find out how the other entrants found inspiration for their poems, and I am also really looking forward to hearing all of the poetry readings during the evening.

J’s record of the week :

‘Fields of Gold’

by

Sting

As the theme of my blog this week is ‘1993,’ I thought I would choose a song from that same year. The ‘fields of gold’ mentioned in the song do not bring to mind barley fields for me, but instead remind me of the garden of my student house in Blackheath.

It was a huge, semi derelict (some may say spooky,) Victorian mansion on Westcombe Park Road. The house had previously been a hostel - my poor Irish neighbour ‘N’ had the bed bugs from that time still resident in her room when we moved in. It was then handed over to accommodate 18 unsuspecting first year geography, geology and environmental science students. I remember listening to the song in my room, while looking out at the metre high, dry September grasses waving in the breeze and thinking that they looked like ‘fields of gold.’

In more recent times, the song has been used to remember those who have left us, which is very fitting when remembering Stephen Lawrence. Take care, Jerushah X