This month, students in English have learned about Amanda Gorman, the young black poet and activist who spoke powerfully at Biden’s inauguration, as part of our school-wide celebration of Black History Month. Arjun Bhatt in Year 9 was inspired to write this powerful poem after reading Gorman’s The Hill We Climb in English.

This Feeling Is Strange

This feeling is strange.
Spending hours on end glued to a screen,
Waiting and hoping for a change.
“Everything has changed though hasn’t it?”
Someone asks, saved from the media signs crowding our lives.
Rules change, laws change, governments change –
But everything still feels the same.

This feeling is strange.
Change is here, just further away from us.
It has to be true if all these people say so on the news.
Governments are toppled and countries evolve.
So why does this feeling not change?
Even if the world burns right before us,
This feeling does not change.

This feeling is strange.
I hear all these people protesting for change.
Does it arrive?
Has anything changed?
Or is the world still the same?
As one protest is silenced,
Another arises,
But this feeling is the same.

This feeling is strange.
No matter how far I scroll,
As people protest for rights,
And as people eat foods larger than their heads,
Nothing changes.
I go again, a few months later.
It’s all the same.

This feeling is strange.
Change is what binds us,
Change is what we need.
So as I wait, hope for a change,
And as I write this –
Another war may start or another government will fall,
But everything still feels the same.

Arjun Bhatt