Listening to the Waves III

In 1994, a number of NYC’s Alternative High Schools and Programs were designed to teach ESL to students from immigrant families. The STREAMS anthologies welcomed their participation and published the students’ poetry in English and their native languages. Contributions came from schools such as Liberty High School on 18th Street, the International School at Laguardia Community College in Queens, and the Lower East Side Prep just north of Manhattan’s Chinatown.

These poems touched on topics like music, love, and friendship. Many young poets wrote of the loss of friends and family. The theme of leaving home was common to many. Breaking away from tradition and facing a new world with different values has been a theme for teens around the world, since the end of tribal society.

Occasionally we scanned in the handwritten poem, as in the following Asian and East European poems from STREAMS 8.

American Moon by Phan Thuan translated by Ai-Jen Lin Chao




American moon,they say, is the roundest one,
But have they experienced it?
Do they know that the U.S. is:
The paradise of the teenager,
The battle field of the middle-ager,
The hell of the elderly?

If you are not the one who won the battle,
Do you still consider the moon of America
The roundest one?

What a bliss it is to be a teenager in the U.S.!
Every day is a joyous day.
How exciting life is to them,
Can’t compare even with paradise.

What a torture is is to be a middle-ager in the U.S.!
Work! Work! Work! Day by day.
Rent! Bills! Making a living isn’t easy,
Not to mention the fear of being unemployed.

What a misery it is to be elderly in the U.S.
Dusk for them always comes early,
Look at the blue sky through the window
Tear by tear the nostalgic tears flow

Hoping to fly back like birds,
But utterly exhausted,
One can only watch the twilight pass away.

As you see someone succeed,
Do you know how much he paid for it?
If you are not the one who won the battle,
Do you still consider the moon of the U.S. the roundest one?
(page 38-9)





“And My Grandma Can’t Come” by Anna Zalewska

I wish I was four, no troubles, no tears,
when all I would do is play with my friends.
Those days are gone. I’m almost seventeen
and I can’t handle it any more.
My grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

I want to dance, I want to get married,
I want to have kids and live by the ocean
I wish that school would start at eleven.
My grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

I wish I could love a person like you,
someone who’s sweet and loves me, too.
But my grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

I want to learn to play the guitar,
before the music becomes too loud,
I wish all the people who really don’t know me,
would keep their mouths shut
and mind their own business.

I wish my parents would realize that
I’m just a human being.
My grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.

Often I wonder if the world would be better
if I wasn’t here. No broken hearts,
no jealousy, no painful rumors.
And still nothing helps
because my grandpa is gone
and my grandma can’t come.
(pages 139-40)

Streams 8