A few weeks ago, I blogged a little piece about Kilkeel and some of the sectarian tension that exsits in the town. There was a range of responses from people, ranging from outright denial from the annual outdoor barbeque brigade to weary acceptance from others.
Dave Wood spent Saturday morning in Kilkeel Library and coincidentally, there was a children’s story telling session on. Dave spoke to the kids and he wrote a poem about Kilkeel with them. The words are solely those of the children, sometimes prompted by Dave, but really there was a rush to get words out and on the paper. They were aged about 5 to 9 years old.
The Librarian turned sadly to us as we left and said ‘You always hope the children don’t know what’s going on, but they do really’. This poem should give us all reason to stop and ponder our attitudes to Northern Ireland and one another. I’ve reproduced the poem here, and as I mentioned in the previous entry on Dave, it will be in the published work in September.
fish factory in and of kilkeel
smelly – like fish
you stink
you stink too
you stink worse
it’s a good poem now
kilkeel kilkeel
everybody fights
on saturday nights
they go to the pub to get a drink
of beer and wine
when they come out –
they have a big fight
when they caught
the fish – they started to stink
who’s the stinkiest one?
(i don’t know)
the fish!
fish stinks like smells
in an ideal place
they’d get on in
kilkeel fish factory
and have stinks
and fish fights
(young people at kilkeel library story telling session)
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