Assignment #14:Poetry of Hope with Reading Buddies

In class we read a poem about the Holocaust. Here's one poem that we read in class about someone that lived in the ghetto:

The Butterfly

The last, the very last,

So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.

Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing

against a white stone. . . .

Such, such a yellow

Is carried lightly ‘way up high.

It went away I’m sure because it wished to

kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks I’ve lived in here,

Penned up inside this ghetto.

But I have found what I love here.

The dandelions call to me

And the white chestnut branches in the court.

Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.

Butterflies don’t live in here,

in the ghetto.

- by Pavel Friedman
Pavel Friedmann was born in Prague on January 7, 1921. He was deported to Terezin on April 26, 1942 and later to Auschwitz, where he died on September 29, 1944

For this assignment we had to do research about the ghetto and write a poem about living in the ghetto with our reading buddies. Me and my reading buddy, Emily, wrote the poem below together:

   Here in the Ghetto:

Here in the ghetto,
Life's so hard,
I can never sleep at night,
It's too crowded and the space is tight
Whatever happened to our houses?
Now we're trapped in here like mice,
Trapped in a hole
Disease spreading everywhere
Oh how I wish I can go back home

Yet,
We still have hope because we still have dreams
That will not be demolished
Until they are accomplished
One day this nightmare will stop
Someone, something, will stand up to these bullies
...
One day
- By Sara and Emily

Hope you enjoyed it! (: