The Little Girl of Hiroshima (a poem by Nazim Hikmet)

VIDEO/Papalem/Youtube

Let’s do poetry reading this time. Actually, this is just a requested recording for a colleague. She’ll use this as her instructional material in the classroom. Recorded this inside the wash-room of our tutorial center as there was no quiet room available. It was a rushed project so I haven’t brought my microphone. I just borrowed her headset with microphone to record this beautiful poem by Nazim Hikmet. Hope you like this. Thanks to CBBC for the animation video, I just thought it’s perfect for the poem. The background music is an instrumental of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, in the style of Josh Groban, as I am really a fan of him, and I think it’s a good melancholic tune for this poem.

Here are the lines of the poem:

I come and stand at every door

But none can hear my silent tread I knocked,

and yet remain unseen

For I am dead, for I am dead

I’m only seven though I died

In Hiroshima long ago

I’m seven now as I was then

When children die they do not grow

My hair was scorched by swirling flames

My eyes grew dim, grew dim and blind

Death came and turn my bone to dust

And that was scattered by the wind

I need no fruit, I need no rice

I need no sweets or even bread

I asked for nothing for my self

For I am dead, for I am dead

All that I asked is that for peace

You fight today, you fight today

So that the children of the world

May live and grow and laugh and play

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