My City: Urban Poetry (Listening + Teacher’s pdf.)

George the Poet: ‘My City’

My city has a lot of faces
Some can be found in forgotten places
Comfortably sound with a lot of graces
The sun could be down on his hungry town
But in London he found him a shot at greatness

My city has a lot of faces
Some can tell you what a (1)_______ of (2)_________is
Before we hated people we were all created equal
Then we learnt to despise the strife
And forgot that variety’s the (3)___________ of life.
Look around you-
Constantly standing on the brink of History
Watching newsreaders linking mystery
Even though a few reporters (4)________ us to be cautious
‘Cos they stink of this disease called inconsistency
See my city has a lot of faces
Four of them belonging to Big Ben
The rest of them (5)______________ behind big business and Big Brother
Ensures all of them are monitored with them
Under social tensions you can see London (6)_________
30% minorities, 300 languages
Differences – race and class, it’s all enormous
But the common ground we found surpasses all the borders.
If you meet a rich man, arse-kiss all his (7)_________-
Or his sons. We all live once
And who (8)_______ us wouldn’t want all of his funds?
That’s rhetorical but I don’t need Call and Response
To know that’s how Londoners are from time to time-
Only got the time to grind and (9) _____________
Technically I’m from an elegant city
But I’m not the kind to wine and dine
I (10)________ up around lots of crime, the violent kind
You might have heard about the rocks, the grime,
The hype and shine- It’s not just Cockney rhyming Slang,
We’ve got ….

Awkward interactions which most don’t force                                                                       Children navigating through postcode wars
In (11)__________ with the least funding.
Look at the state of East London, that’s a paradox-
Witness the economy (12)_______ for the have-a-lots.                                                               What a sight to see, we could swap a nicety                                                                       Join us in moving along to the groove of the song…

273 times the wealth of the poorest
Yet your door is next door to the extra poor.
We look on the bright side but we’re (13) _____ for sure
Like all we have to ourselves is sex and war
And a lot of diversity, so what could I personally
Hate a complexion for?
I see different coloured hands (14)______ for more.

Answers Below!

Answers:

1. loss
2. faith
3. spice
4. taught
5. hidden
6. languishes
7. daughters
8. among
9. whine
10. grew
11. estates
12. blooming
13. vexed
14. outstretched