Sometimes we don’t have a choice – we have to get up and go to school or work to learn or earn money, we have to eat each day to stay healthy, and we need to clean our teeth every day to keep our smiles in working order.
And sometimes it feels as if we don’t have any choice – perhaps we feel we need to say we like something we don’t because most people do like that thing, or we must behave in a certain way because we will be thought uncool if we don’t.
This poem is about choosing to be you – are there things about yourself that you feel others might not approve of? Do you care? Do you worry about it? How does that make you feel?
Here’s the poem in words instead of the shape of the nightingale:
The Nightingale
Liz
hidden in the heart
of darkling leaves
he sings
notes flow
in rivers
and rapids
and falls
he doesn’t care
for being
the same
as all the
other birds
with their
repeating calls
he sings to the sky
at night
sings alone
the loveliest
song of them all
Liz Brownlee
Poetry Roundabout 