Friends come and go but family are still there. People always laugh at me and think that they can win through, but I hate when they judge me not knowing what I’ve been through. I smile while I’m hurting, I laugh while I’m crying When I’m sad or alone I keep an optimistic mind And when I’m threatened and hurt I still stand my ground. An African boy, ‘in a crate he was found’, An irreverent way to bring my self-esteem down. But I digress, my mother comes from there … With her light brown skin and her curly hair. Came with nothing, had to work from scratch From village to city but not just like that (click) From mad colour coated fabrics to dull black and white From joined brothers and sisters to stinging stereotypes So again my name is Sean and I hope you’ll stick around So who am I? Well I’m Crumlin and I’m Irish. Sound!
1. Write down fi ve facts you learn about the poet from his poem.
2. Make a list of all the pronouns (personal and possessive) you can fi nd in this poem.
3. What do you learn about the poet’s foes in the poem?
4. If you were the poet’s friend and could say something to support him, what would you say?
5. Choose three words from the poem that you found most interesting. Discuss your choices with a classmate
and explain how these words made you feel. REMEMBER:
A pronoun takes the place of a noun. A personal pronoun is ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’, ‘she’, etc. A possessive pronoun shows possession, e.g. ‘mine’, ‘yours’, ‘his’, ‘hers’.
