Asian Poems For Young Readers

I just came across this, well, not-so-new book today. It's the Asian Poems For Young Readers, volume 7 (published under the Longman imprint by Pearson Malaysia). Volume 7? Looks like this series has been around for some time. The seven volumes published in this series so far included three volumes of poetry and four volumes of short stories.

What's unique about this series is that it was written by teachers and lecturers from around Asia, with their own students in mind. For this particular volume, the poems were written by participants from eight countries during a creative writing workshop held in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2006. For this workshop, participants had to write poems before arriving in Hanoi, and the poems were peer-edited during the workshop. The rest of the poems were written during a single day in a trip to Chua Huong (The Perfumed Pagoda) in Hanoi.

I am still reading through it, and would like to share some of the interesting stuff I had read:

Broom held in one hand,
This absent-minded cleaner,
Re-arranges dust.
(Alan Paley, UK)

How Funeral and Wedding Became Enemies

Funeral and Wedding,
Were once good neighbours
And lived happily side-by-side.
But since Wedding turned down
A visit from Funeral,
Their relationship has turned sour!
(Janpha Thadphoothon, Thailand)

Faint Hope

So much water in the river,
How can I hope to comb it all with my fingers?

So many trees on the mountain,
How can I hope to trim them with my eyes?

So many ideas in my mind,
How can I hope to string them together with words?
(Meng Tian, China)

There are still many more poems in this rather slim volume (76 pages). One of the editors of this volume is Jayakaran Mukundan from Malaysia.

It's good to know there are teachers who love to write poetry, especially in Malaysia. I believe there always has been; they receive little exposure.