Rigged Game

This is a little side track from the main theme of this blog, but it involves my own love for slam poetry and other languages.

The 4.6 million English language learners in the United States public school system are in trouble, according to poet Dylan Garity. Calling them “good organs in a sick body,” he believes that their ability to succeed in the U.S. school system is endangered by policies around English education and he’s using the power of the pen—or, in this case, the poetry slam—to get the word out about it.

The poem derives much of its power from its comparisons:

“Learning to read in a new language when you cant even read in your own is like trying to heal a burn victim by drowning them.

We are telling these children who have spent their whole lives in the deep end that they’ll learn how to swim if they just float out a little farther.”

via This Poetry Slam Video Will Make You Care about ESL Education Even If Youve Never Heard of That by Nur Lalji — YES! Magazine.