MPA Student Work

Grade 12 Place Writing by Hari Simran Singh

The Grade 12 English class was given an assignment to write about place, appealing to the five senses. It could be a simple description, or a description as part of a story. Here is one of the results by Hari Simran Singh:

The new moon outshines the stars in the sky.
The full moon is pale beside the millions of eyes
Staring brightly, unblinking from sixty stories high.

The taste of the metropolis is on the tip on my tongue
I inhale diversity! into the depths of my lungs.

Two syncopated rhythms run north south east west:
The stop-go of the local and the go-go of the express.

Bound by the water, we scraped at the sky and pierced it.
On the ground we are close (in physical nearness)
But separated, very clearly, by independence at its fiercest.

In the belly of the city, it's be aware or Beware!
Open your eyes wide, but never (accidentally) meet someone's stare.

Ten million cities are visualized by ten million minds
New York is a pluralized lifescaper, collectively designed.