Developing the students'talents

A poem written by Salma Lotfy a secondary stage student in Elnasr Experimental lang . School:
The Days That Are No More

Again, cannot forget the passions of the yore,
Cannot close the door...
Sinking, submerged by the gore,
Shed on the corrosive tangled swords,
Wrapping mercy into a fore pore.

Again, feeling the hatred pour,
Washing away the hope from the core...
Drowning, will never reach the shore,
Even the love words
Have been all deluged by the grudge of the war.

Insane, cannot escape the chore;
Only the sound of the bullets falling on the floor
Can avenge from the ones who made as tore…
Blood and blood only can cure the sighs
Of a nation has to be always fore.

Blamed, the ones who broke and wore,
Only candles might be held for their sore roar;
Mistaken, for thinking of peace and the days that are no more,
And for their plangent cries,
Coffins will tranquilize them all, and they will screech no more.

A poem written by Salma in the secondary stage from Egypt:
I Have No Soul Anymore…


I have no soul anymore…
When I once had hope, you killed all my dreams...
When I once had tears, you ignored all my fears...
When I once had love, you deformed it into fading pipe dreams...
When I once had a soul, you ripped it all, leaving behind nothing but a black hole of what the "being alive" thing feels...
I've nothing to live for,
Nothing to grasp,
Nothing to ignore,
I have no soul anymore...

Mr Ahmed Khabaz from Morocco has read Salma's works and gave her his feedback in that wonderful email . Thank you Mr Ahmed and I really learn from you .Here's his comment on Salma's works
Dear Salma,



Well, I’m glad Mrs. Soher teaches you even more than her telling you about me. You know, Salma, I really appreciate the students who stand out amidst a lot of their peers. Talent is wonderful, and it makes those talented just unique.



What drew me closer and closer to your writing products is your highly refined sense of getting deeper into the human psyche and digging inside looking for the representations of what we call suffering. Your poem and story bear witness to your ability to see what many people can’t see, to film, only with your pen, what even some professional cameramen couldn’t catch. Briefly, you conveyed suffering of the inside as well as the outside. You made me see the atrocities of war through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old girl, but not any girl: a girl who ably makes a difference only to say that she understands the gravity of the mistakes of the adults.



What pushed me to infer that you are a voracious reader was simply the amount of well chosen words throughout the two pieces of writing I read. Your choice of adjectives was beyond description. How can an ordinary reader come up with such a large vocabulary repertoire unless she reads a lot, or, as the case is, reads a little but captures the words that represent something to her? In other words, you don’t let go of the words you read here and there. You weigh every vocabulary item and save it in your memory for later use. This is the distinction you managed to make. You value what you read, and readers, including myself, value what you write.



In fact I wonder why your parents are afraid your extra or extensive reading would detain you from reading the syllabus. Textbooks are necessary for revision and sitting for school tests and exams, but definitely textbooks alone have never made great writers. Knowledge is built through a process, and is never given via textbooks.



Therefore, I strongly advise you to read whenever you have time, and primarily, whenever what you want to read is really worth reading. In so doing, you will broaden your view to life via others’ experiences. You will learn how to tolerate differences, and how to be modest while discovering what writers of other backgrounds produced. As a student, reading will help you enrich your vocabulary database and improve your grammar and style. Actually, it will help you learn things you have never thought about.



The fact that you make mistakes is something just good. You may wonder how. I would say that erring is a clear sign that progress is being made. Never be afraid of mistakes. Write and write, but know the mistakes later. Study them and then avoid them the next time you set pen to paper. Fortunately, the mistakes you make can be easily spotted, for either they are of spelling or punctuation and capitalization or grammar or style. Categorizing them will easily help you avoid them.



Usually, people praise your work either sincerely or just as a compliment. Sometimes they criticize it. Whether it deserves negative or positive criticism is something subjective and relative. A young writer like you needs guidance. You need those who tell you that your work is great and it would be even greater if you attend to the following points (usually mistakes). I believe this is what will eventually make of you a good writer before being an outstanding author whose writings become the bestsellers ever. If you read the biographies of great artists, you will find out that they were nothing, but with perseverance, error and trial, the desire to excel and, above all, self-confidence they managed to be something, or rather, somebody.



As for me, I’m not as you think. True, I write, but truer still, I’m an amateur. Professionalism is not my cup of tea, at least for the time being. Teaching takes so much of my time. My writings are scattered. One thing I’m proud of: when I start writing, I feel what I write; I tremble when I portray. I talk with what I write only to stress that writing is not only ink on paper, but also part of me. This is how I go on writing and writing so immersed in my world that I build with words. I sometimes suffer when I look for the appropriate word in the appropriate place. I give each word its value and weight without substituting it with its synonym because I believe that even synonyms are not twin words. There are so slight differences and shades of meanings. I do my best to portray the human agony as ably as possible.



Love reading and writing will love you. Love the word once, it will love you twice.

All the best to the rising writer, Salma.



Peace,

AHMED KHABAZ



P.S. I’LL READ YOUR OTHER WRITINGS MRS. SOHER FORWARDED TO ME TODAY.

Here's the latest work of Salma a student in Elnasr school in Egypt:
That world

The streets are gold,
Cars moving so fast, but all feels so cold...
People are looming,
Their bodies are coexisting,
Nevertheless, the eyes are distrait,
Their hearts are strayed without a clue
Searching for that world
That does not anymore exist.

Flotsam on the paving sprinkle,
Thought there is hope in their eyes twinkle…
Strange how they're still smiling
Defying all their suffering,
And coloring their fate
Into pacific blue,
Despite knowing their artificial hoped world
Cannot ever exist.

Sailors are lost in sea of doubt,
Screaming without a sound…
With hands drenched in blood they are bailing
The brine deluging the ship that is no more sailing,
They immolated their shade
In the dark blue
For the sake of reaching the world
That never exists.

The aggrieved are racked in bonds,
Still they are for freedom rhyming songs…
They're for the all's rights fighting,
They are for the world peace departing,
They were mistaken, for trying to erase the inalterable world hate!
Neither guns nor roses nor rue
Could sire the just world
That is in phantasm exist.

The sky is falling down
Blanking everything with its black gown…
The ocean is bleeding,
The earth is cleaving,
The universe is discharging its hate,
Satisfying its menace, it has been always promising to do,
Devouring the foolish aspirants of the peaceful world
That will never exist.

As a dear colleague Mr Ahmed Khabaz from Morocco encouraged my student Salma from Egypt to read and to write more , She created a wonderful poem . Read and enjoy:
Do Not Estrange Us

Do not estrange us and say predestination,
Do not stray us amongst harbors without a destination,
Do not waste us with tears and farewell,
This way you will kill
Our allegiance, we -in you- believed…
Do not estrange us.

Do not estrange us in wastelands while we are the farmers,
While we have norias wheeling in our hands despite the tortures.
We will not buy light feddans if a recreant deceived…
Do not estrange us.

Do not estrange us in dying lands while we are the undying,
You are our first field, first seedling, and first keeping.
Without you, the day passes by beaten and lugubrious…
Do not estrange us.

Do not estrange us in wind lands while we are your liege,
We are the ones who refused to let you be a grave in world of make-believe.
Shade the wounded with your love and desist your absence…
Do not estrange us.

Salma from Egypt wrote this poem . Enjoy:
Iris

You inquire about my trauma,
My night used to sow my day aurora.
Then, the lips were riant,
Then, the cosmos was my playground,
But for once, you opened my iris
To the one who murthered you and betrayed us.

You inquire about my distress,
My sacrifice and my silence.
Then, I were bearing the uneasy,
Then, I were slinging the pulse of my servility,
But for once, you opened my iris
To the one who murthered you and betrayed us.

You inquire about my disbelief.
My Attic faith was laughing away my doubts and grief.
Then, I were the legal,
Then, I were the loyal,
Why did you once open my iris
To the one who murthered you and betrayed us?

Yogesh from India is aware of developing the students'talents and he wanted to join my project . He wrote to me these words :Hi Soheir this is yogesh from India .I like to join your project too. As our endeavour is all-round development of students. .I hope you would like to take us on your project. kindly acknowledge thanks