Tyger Tyger

78 Pages·2015·10.79 MB·English

WRITING CHALLENGE
The Blake Society 2015
Foreword
The Seeds
of the ‘Tyger Tyger Writing Challenge’ lie in a
remarkable outreach event at London Zoo in October 2014, when
children from the charity Kids Company were invited by the Blake
Society to read out Blake’s poem The Tyger in front of an actual
tiger. This proved to be such a successful and thought-provoking
event that the Society decided to launch a special writing challenge,
open to schools and young people from around the UK, to
encourage all aspiring and daring young poets under the age of 25
to write a poem on the theme of the tiger, and what it means to us
today.
The selection of poems in this booklet are the fruit and
flowering of that project, a wonderfully diverse and imaginative
collection of words, thoughts, and images that collectively frame a
living ‘snapshot’ of the tiger in the twenty-first century.
Blake’s original poem first appeared in his Songs of
Innocence and of Experience, a work that fused themes of
childhood, social distress, poetry, trauma, and freedom - subjects
that in fact recur and resonate in many of the poems in this present
collection. The living tiger appears as many things to many people -
as Blake himself noted, “Every Eye Sees differently. As the Eye,
Such the Object”. Moreover, how we perceive and attend to the
world, as modern neuroscience now suggests, actually alters the
nature of the world that we attend to.
These poems are both a record of how children and young
people perceive the world and an embodiment of their sense of
relationship to it. Blake’s poem asks challenging questions about
this relationship and invites us to see: not only to look at the world,
but to look at how we look at the world. This opens up vision to
where it properly resides: within our imaginations, which is where
“the forests of the night” ultimately are rooted.
So, with the help of Blake and his tyger as our guide, I invite
you to enter in and explore the extraordinary inner worlds that these
poems so powerfully and beautifully capture and embody.
Rod Tweedy,
Secretary, Blake Society

Index of Contributors
Sreelakshmi Pradeep 6
Anaya Hammond 7
Nat Norland 10
Ana Maria Gavril 11
Naiema Sultana 12
Tharshiya Paramanathan 14
Hannah Morgan 15
Imogen Cassels 17
Joseph Loughrey 19
Rachel Lewis 22
Ruby Daniel 24
Isis Phillips 26
Riley Wallace 27
Poppy Wallace 29
Lily Redfern 30
Ambika Bates 32
Zainab Ahme 34
Mursaha Ijaz 36
Ana Maria Gavril 37
Aaliyah Emily Roberts 39
Hawra Mahdi 43
Dina Samin 45
Courtney Fishwick 46
Amira Abdi 50
Devon Hazel 53
Emma Siegfried 56
Esha Gupta 58
Halimah Sharif 59
Hannah Wall 62
Akash Mattupalli 64
Hope Cameron-Douglas 66
Mohammad Saquib 67
“I cannot think that real poets have any
competition. None are greatest in the kingdom of
heaven. It is so in poetry.” - Blake
And I made a rural pen, And I stain’d the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear
And such were the joys
When we all, girls & boys, When my mother died I was very young
In our youth-time were seen,
On the Ecchoing Green
When the voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And every thing else is still
Dedication
To all of the wonderful, daring,
resilient, and imaginative
children and young people who
have contributed to this project:
thank you so much for sharing
your amazing talents and
creativity, and for helping to
transform this project.
The young painter Samuel Palmer once visited Blake in the
small two-room apartment he lived and worked in with his wife
Catherine, off the Strand in London. He led his friend to a
window, and pointed to a group of children at play outside.
“That is heaven,” he said.
Thus did my mother say and kissed me,
Ands thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy
Little Lamb God bless thee
Stripes, the Tiger
For many days I have been inside these walls,
All I get is strips of meat, 
I miss my home above all….
Beyond these walls, I would like to see 
The green grass, the thick forest,
And my friends…
The rather spoilt zoo-keeper’s kid, 
Called me the worst name, Stripes
He throws stones through the holes of the wall,
And thank goodness, they never hit me!
But, at least I have some new friends
And, do they miss their home too?
Even though the carers and the visitors are kind,
Save me from this torturous world!
Sreelakshmi Pradeep, age 9
Ninja tiger 
You never see me coming
Stealthy from head to toe
Now you see me

Now you don't
That's how it goes

Because I am the ninja tiger

The best yet

I am the best

Better than the rest

You will never see me
Because I am the lighting

I am the thunder

I am the one you never see

If you see me

It's very rare you're probably lying
Because I am the lighting

I am the thunder

I am the only one
By Anaya Hammond, age 12
now you see me
now you don’t
I am the lightning
Grandfather
Time was
No one could best you in the ring
Mangy furred, underfed thing
But the legions’ strongest lions
Could not match your skill.
Titus’s finest.
Twisting on your back
Graceful even in debasement.
A flash of blood,
Not yours.
It was over so fast:
Another mane left in the mud.
Rome burns, Colosseums crumble,
Your decline and fall had yet to come.
Match after match
In the courts of kings
Or forests bristling with rifles.
After so many fights
Won to no purpose,
You gave ground.
Do they remember you in Bali?
It was over so fast:
Sulphur scented powder crack
Another striped coat in the market.
Panthera tigris,
We named you,
Painted you, glorified your shape.
We take you, reduce you
To rugs and remedies.
Panthera tigris
Never forget
After all this time
For all your grace
You’re only fur and flesh.
(Grandfather is the name given to tigers by the Tungusic
people of Siberia)
Nat Norland, age 17