Congratulations Zakariya

We would like to congratulate our young writer Zakariya Mohammad who recently entered the  The Poetry Society’s Pop Culture Poetry Challenge – a national competition – with his wonderful poem written in our Popular Culture workshop in November 2021. His submission impressed the judges and was long listed! Well done Zakariya!  His inspiring poem Ode to My Minecraft Pig can be read and appreciated below. We are sure you will be impressed too!

To read the winning entries click here: https://ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk/workshop/super-mario-fidget-spinners-beyonce-the-pop-culture-poetry-challenge/

An Ode to My Minecraft Pig

*popular culture shapes our lives, and language. Some of the terms used in this poem are representative this

Dear Minecraft pig,

Alone. Yet together

Input blocks transform to output cubes

I love your multiple faces, and sharp corners

Pink as you skuttle in a colourful land,

The plodding of your feet like the drums from a band

Part of a passive mob* you may be

But beware! Thudding axes, exploding TNT

A fantastic source of meat if you hit the floor

But don’t strife, you have eternal life, spawn* for more

You graze on grassy biomes, hogging the spotlight

Oh little pig! Time to join my plight

Saddle up, follow the carrot

Through the tiniest cavity

Greek islands, dragon ball, fantasy castle,

we have them all.

Kaiosama’s world, Survival Island, Rocky Mountains,

You’re even present on the highlands.

Romans?… Ancient Egypt? … Stonehenge perhaps?

Little pig, You’re my companion to them all.

Without you my friend, I would be uninspired

in a blank white room. Lonely.

Zakariya Mohammed aged  9