This month we asked for poetry submissions on the theme ‘Student Experience’. Writers could take any stance they wanted on the matter, be it positive or negative – all we ask for is for honesty and creativity. Check the results out below!
Nottingham, When I Leave You
nottingham, when I leave you,
it is not my crumb-coated cold kitchen feet
the promise that meets me in your damp morning air
that pauses to graze my exposed skin as i venture beyond the door
it is not the melding of scalding tea and frozen lips,
the ebb and flow of mechanical routine
it is not my distorted sense of attachment to you
like the candle sitting at my bedside, wax waning
constantly reignited and blown out
through this winter that never seems to end
it is not these that i will miss
but it is these that enchant me
Celeste Wijnands (Second Year English Student)
Strangers
First day alone in empty halls,
heartbeat thumping amidst the silence,
meandering amongst dim lit corridor walls,
awaiting the arrival of a thousand strangers.
One moment submerged in nervous apprehension,
and the next in colourful frenzied elation
In empty pitchers and hungover stories,
the strangers found a fickle affection.
“For we who were strangers once, call ourselves friends today.”
In the limbo of bizarre company and circumstance,
a stranger I am to them as they are to me,
jostled together by some humorous fate and
hurled towards an unknown future
One year past and at the end of it,
some good some bad days but no more strangers.
For we who were strangers once,
call ourselves friends today.
Kumar Singh (Second Year Economics Student)
They Said
They said these would be the best years of my life
my life bundled into boxes, crammed into the car,
the car pulling away, parents gone, though I wore their embrace as an amulet: no matter how far apart, family remains when all else changes,
all else changes, drifts, merges into something new,
new friends, new studies, new home,
Everyone else here is also new,
yet our mutual alienness only made me feel more alone,
more alone than ever before,
trying to find familiarities in all this newness. But the home comforts decorating my room appeared a façade- these four walls couldn’t truly be mine, providing only a shell for me to retreat into,
retreat into myself, only to discover that I too am unfamiliar. What were once hopeful expectations, ‘these are the going to be the best years ever right?’ have been dulled by disappointment at my own inability to be social, to participate in the clubbing and partying rites of passage into stereotypical university life.
Stereotypical university life, narrowly modelling what I’d been told made these years the best.
Lauren Winson (First Year English Student)
Observations from Hallward Library
My coffee now cold
Trembles visibly
Before the hurried footfalls
And the rowdy melody
Of newly published adults
A new age of sparkling first editions
Filtering through
In the early afternoon.
Daylight trickles through
The long, languid windows
Reminiscent of late nights
And early starts
Students yawn and stretch
As Springtime unfurls
Her strong sinewy limbs-
-Cramped from hibernation
Matching the sleepy-eyed gazes
Of the students here
With their easy chatter
Rising and falling with every heartbeat
To the calming chaotic atmosphere
As common as a fly away hair.
Esther Kearney (Second Year English Student)
Do you want to showcase some of your own work? Our next theme is ‘Nature’ – submit your poetry to entertainment@impactnottingham.com for your chance to feature!
Featured and article images courtesy of Isobel Sheene.
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