AISR logo Sitemap | Jobs | Contact Usenvelope  


Building Smart Education Systems



Voices in Urban Education

Archives

Adolescent Literacy
VUE Number 3, Spring 2004

| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |

What Is After-School Worth? Developing Literacy and Identity Out of School

By Glynda Hull and Jessica Zacher


View Asia's digital poem
Article with audio clips


Transcript of Asia's Digital Poem

How much is a life worth?
Is it worth a million?
Some people kill billions
Billions of innocent lives
Lives that used to be on this precious place called earth. Hate
Hate is the reason that most lives are no longer here
Here physically or mentally
People kill and steal every day
Everyday another life is taken away
Away from a family or loved one
Ones who cared
But sometimes people don't care
They don't care about themselves or even the lives of others
People take other people's lives everyday
Everyday there are homicides
Homicides in the hood, in the suburbs, in the foreign countries
Everywhere lives are being taken, taken by nonsense like
Gang related activities
Fights, drugs
People take their own lives every day too
Because of depression and self-hate
They want to be that smart one that pretty one, that brave one
They just want to be someone else and because they canŐt be what they wanta be
They sometimes take their life

Love
Love is what we all need
Some people need love
Some people don't have love
They feel like no one cares
But someone does love them
A community is a form of love
It's a place where people laugh and get hugs
Communities are worldwide
It's like an ocean with no tide
It's a place where people come together
To share whatever
Whatever they're doing or did
But if no one shares that they're hurting
How can that person get help
Help from being abused or misused
Commiting a violent crime
Or about to be violated.

So tell me, how much is a life worth?
People committing black on black crime.
How much are their lives worth?
People getting killed in the army everyday
How much are their lives worth?
Girls and boys getting raped and molested every day
How much are their lives worth?
People on this earth who don't know why
Why are they on this earth, living for?
So, can you tell me how much their lives are really worth?
How much is a life worth to me?
It's priceless.

-- Asia Washington, 2003



Top  |  Permissions