Poems United
Poems United is an anthology of poetry for young people, bringing together poems from 68 countries of the Commonwealth. The Scottish contribution is from Edwin Morgan, but we've picked a more international example for our Poem of the Week.
Flight of the Firstborn is by Peggy Carr, who hails from the Caribbean island of St Vincent. Alongside each poem is an interesting fact from each featured country.
Flight of the Firstborn
He streaks past his sixteenth year
small island life stretched tight
across his shoulders
his strides rehearsing city blocks
college brochures
airline schedules
stream excitedly through his
newly competent hands
his goodbyes like blurred neon
on a morning suddenly gone wet
I’m left stranded
on a tiny patch of time
still reaching
to wipe the cereal from his smile
by Peggy Carr
St Vincent and the Grenadines is one of the countries of the Eastern Caribbean lying close to the end of the Caribbean chain and north of Grenada.
Did you know?
The Caribs who lived in St Vincent before it was colonised by the British called the island Yurumein which meant ‘the beauty of the rainbows in the valleys’.
- Poems United: A Commonwealth Anthology
This anthology for young people aged ten to 14 reflects the many different peoples, landscapes, climates, songs and languages of the Commonwealth, in poems from unknown authors, children, anonymous writers, and famous authors.
