Photography Credit: APEX
Brian Patten
Brian Patten writes for both adults and children and his books have been translated into many languages. An accomplished performer of both humorous and serious work, he has performed in venues as varied as The Islamic Students Union in Khartoum, local schools, and the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank. More poems and information about Brian and video clips etc. can be found on his website, here. One of his poetry books, Thawing Frozen Frogs (try saying that quickly!) illustrated by Chris Riddell, is here.
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Here is one of his wonderful poems:
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Geography Lesson
Our teacher told us one day he would leave
And sail across a warm blue sea
To places he had only known from maps,
And all his life had longed to see.
the house he lived in was narrow and grey
But in his mind’s eye he could see
Sweet-scented jasmine clinging t the walls,
And green leaves burning on an orange tree.
He spoke of the lands he longed to visit,
Where it was never drab or cold.
I couldn’t understand why he never left,
and shook off the school’s stranglehold.
Then halfway through his final term
He took ill and never returned,
And he never got to that place on the map
Where the green leaves of the orange trees burned.
The maps were redrawn on the classroom wall;
His name was forgotten, it faded away.
But a lesson he never knew he taught
Is with me to this day.
I travel to where the green leaves burn,
to where the ocean’s glass-clear and blue,
to all those places my teacher taught me to love
But which he never knew
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© Brian Patten (First published in Juggling With Gerbils (Puffin, Penguin Books). For permission to reproduce, contact Rogers, Coleridge and White Literary Agents.)
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