"I can kill people.
I am the Dust King
I rule the dust
I rule
everything"
by Dean Kelly
Students
spend a lesson thinking about the effects of soil erosion.
The lesson begins with a piece of music - Bruce Springsteen singing
"I ain't got no home" by Woody Guthrie. During the music,
the class is shown the two photos below and asked to come up with a
list of descriptive words. Students are then given a few minutes to
write some lines of poetry to express their feelings about the photos.
The students asked to remain annonymous!
On this page are some are some excerpts from poems written during the
lesson. Remember they are the result of just 10 minutes work!
"Unsure and tired the people stare
They're desperate,
it's barren and cold.
Along the
dusty roads they must stumble,
Find life
elsewhere, be bold."
"A cloud of dust
orbits the land
The air is dry the fields bland
People pray for the wind to stay
so that the dust is blown away
But the wind eventually stops
and the dust begins to drop.
People run and try to hide
as the land begins to rise."
"Nobody expected it and when it came
Nobody wanted it
Nobody benefited from it
Everybody suffered
Nobody could prevent it
and when it came
Nobody could stop it
It destroyed all
Everybody suffered."
"Fields of annihilation,
wheels sink
in this blanket
Machines are
torn apart
That's what happens when you mess with dust."
"The dry dust came running towards us
The trees were buried
And our food gone in the dust
For seconds all went blank,
People gasping for air under the dusty top
Then we all emerged...."
