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Book Review: Waiting for the future: Poems by children on poverty and bad housing

reviewed by anna battista

Britain may be one of the richest countries in the world, yet millions of people are still living on the breadline, unable to afford a proper roof on their heads, trapped in unhealthy homes and in a lifelong cycle of deprivation. 3.5 million children live in poverty, more than one million in bad housing. Leading charities Shelter and End Child Poverty, have created, thanks to the help of twenty-one schools, hundreds of school children and eight poets, among them also Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, a unique poetry anthology to raise public awareness.

Both Shelter, a charity that has been working for 40 years to prevent bad housing and homelessness from taking a terrible toll on people’s lives, and End Child Poverty, a coalition of organisations from the voluntary, private and public sectors, campaigning to ensure that the goal of eradicating child poverty becomes a reality, have collaborated on this project to enable children to express their views and feelings as well as to draw attention to the impact of poverty and bad housing.

Opening with Andrew Motion’s “Missing”, the anthology features original poems by children aged between 7 and 16 from all over England. The various poems highlight issues such as poverty, hunger, bad housing and its consequences, and the frustrations of many of these children. In some poems the children wish their parents had jobs (“If Only”), in others clean and warm clothes (“The clothes don’t fit”), proper food (“The empty plate”, “The bakery”) and a house that’s not damp (“Here I am”). In an untitled poem a child wishes he were a leaf to fly away from the misery of going home hungry or going to bed cold, in “Mummy and me” three children wonder if it is worth living in abject poverty. All the verses collected in the anthology are heartbreaking and moving pleas for help.

Waiting for the future is a call to action for the British Government to end child poverty and bad housing for the next generation of children. This is an extraordinary little book, an initiative that deserves to be supported. To purchase the anthology (£5) go to www.shelter.org/publications. All proceeds will go directly to Shelter and End Child Poverty.

For further information on Shelter visit www.shelter.org.uk. For further information on End Child Poverty visit www.ecpc.org.uk.


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