The Power of the Pen: A Collective

The ‘E’ Word

A short collection of confessional pieces advocating young men to declare
their emotions: speak out, for boys cry too.

Contributors
Joe Davies
Ananjan Ganguli
David Aderibigbe
 The Righteous

How eagerly the righteous preach,

their speeches less to teach and more
to condescend to the less enlightened
‘bout how their language makes us frightened:

“’No homo, bro’ or ‘that’s so gay’,

that unintended hate,” they say,
“That absence of morality
makes your peers fear their sexuality.”

And yes, this message resonates

this dismal status quo creates
an atmosphere of silent dread
where words of doubt swirl ‘round one’s head

and yet, what do the righteous care?

These instances, to them, are rare:
these ‘champions of men’ are blind,
and out of sight means out of mind.

A twelve-year-old in Tennessee,
an age where kids should thrive, carefree,
within a closet, weeping, stays
while his parents pray the gay away.

And those saintly folk, four thousand miles away,

with quotas of compassion filled for the day,
turn blinded eyes towards the violence
and reassume their default ambivalence.

This issue won’t just disappear

by closing eyes and plugging ears:
we must stand together, me and you,
for the rights of LGBTQ.

Be proud of who you truly are:

together, we can heal the scars
of generations gone before
and open up the closet door.

Joe Davies
 The Craved

I am adored,
I am craved
I am yearned for
I am what every man, woman, child, animal,
Desires.

But I, am out of reach

But I am suppressed
But I am withdrawn
I am abolished, eliminated, removed, from the lives of so many, due to the always
working,
Machine of Society.

However, I remain
I await
I expect
I hold on, stand by, hang around, I hope for and am hoped for at the end of a
Timeless, exhausting day.

I am essential to life
And the life of numerous living things
Yet why am I disregarded daily?

I am Sleep
and we all need it.

Ananjan Ganguli
 Why was the paper folded?
Think of life as a small folded piece of paper.
The side facing up is superior to the side facing down.
The side facing up has always seen the light whereas the side facing down has never
seen it.
The side facing up looks plain but untouched, but the side facing down cannot even be
seen.
I have a question – did the paper come folded?
Or has society, with every twist, every turn, every edge, every corner folded the piece of
paper, so that one side can be seen with no issues, looking up to the light, looking up to
heaven, whereas the other side is not even acknowledged, looking down to darkness,
looking down to hell?
I don’t know. Do you?
However, when you unfold the piece of paper, you start to see the side that was facing
down all that time.

You can see more.

Unfold it again.
You start to see forgotten races, forgotten cultures, forgotten families.

Keep unfolding.
Don’t stop.
Keep unfolding.

Keep unfolding until you see the full piece of paper.

It doesn’t look like it did when it was first found.
You can see the folds, maybe creases, maybe some parts look more uneven than
others
But at least you can see it all.
Today there are lots of parts of the world with the paper unfolded
and when people, young people, come into this part of the world, they don’t see the
folds.

In others, the paper is still folded.

And when people, young, innocent people come into this part of the world, they are
already damaged, hurt, creased like the society they have been born into
but they don’t know it yet.
I call for the paper to be unfolded, not necessarily flattened out to perfection, because it
can’t be, but unfolded so everything is on show.
Unfold the piece of paper.

One final question remains...

Who placed the first fold?

David Aderibigbe
 Once upon a different story…
Inspired by the deeply subversive works of Angela Carter, turn the page for
a series of enthralling, transgressive and original retellings of the classic
fairy tales.
Contributors
Ben Davies
Ed Foxhall
Shaun Abraham
Aashman Kumar
Athisaran Sivanesan
Timothee Menoumba
 In the Light of Mourning
The old mirror hung in the centre of the room, opposite the Davenport, unmoved for
nigh on 50 years, despite the transient nature of the rest of the room. The house maid
seemed to think that the movement of a chiffonier would free the mad spirits that clung
to the shelves like titian leaves to the boughs of winter trees.

Cinderella was dressed in black. Her ruched mourning dress held her body in the way
that he used to.

She peered in the looking glass. She didn’t recognise the woman staring back at her.
The mirror weaved a tapestry of lines that danced and shimmered round her eyes. She
resented it. This woman was bitter; her lines of beauty beset by lines of wisdom. Her
skin was stretched and sagged; her pearly white sails no longer bolstered by the soft
winds of youth.

She left the room, veiled and reserved, and began the dissent down the stairs.

Ben Davies
 Rumpelstiltskin
You know this story.
There was once a Queendom far to the West. Fields were filled with swaying, golden
barley, that grew in amber rays of warmth.
Abundant. Plentiful. Effortless.
The harvests were so rich that every man and woman had no want for more, no need
for hunger. The men who owned the fields had traded across the continents, growing
their wealth from meagre inheritances to colossal fortunes. These men displeased the
Queen. The Queen had no fear for rebellion, nor waging of war, for her Queendom had
grown prosperous under her rule and her people’s bellies did not grow hungry. But she
had grown jealous of the wealth of her merchants and her tradesmen. She decided that
she would put a stop to it.
And so, it was that the Queen issued a decree, “calling forth alchemists and magicians
to the royal court of Queen Midas”. The word spread like wildfire through the fertile
fields of her lands, flitting from tongue to ear. Before week’s end, a congregation had
gathered around the unflinching walls of the Queen’s castle, the sound of their excited
chatter and boastful blabber bubbling over the cobbled walls. However, as the Queen
soon discovered, many to be false; hollow quacks, offering false remedies to her
poisonous envy. All except for one.
His name was Rumpelstiltskin: his story, legend, the goblin who spun gold, not for a king
but the prosperous queen.
You know this story, don’t you?

Ed Foxhall
 Beauty and the Beast
The Beast.
An inky blotch on the pure white beauty of the universe. A foul pervasive smog
enveloping the earth, shrouding all that is good in existence. Pumped out in tons from
those ominous fortresses from which Sunlight itself quails. There was a moment, a
second in our measly hour of being that it could have been stopped – an opportune time
where doom was not yet inevitable. It was not taken. Even now it is fought, tirelessly by
those in the stainless blank cloaks, those who raise armies for the cause, those who
have seen enlightenment; to no avail.
The Beast.
It is deceptive, quiet and yet looms in plain sight. At all times, in all seasons, choking us.
Dragging us by the chest towards that final realm. We feel it all the days of our lives, a
chill down the spine, an impending fear that can only be put off and not ended. It wraps
us in its snaky tendrils and yet it still appears as a distant enemy. That is its power. We
see it, feel it, know it, and yet we don’t. That is the core.
The Beast.
Our thoughtless pursuit of luxury and joy feeds it. With a mighty gust from its cavernous
mouth, we are returned to the dust we are made from. There is no shield from it, no
loophole in its inevitable dominance. There can be no happy ending. We despise this,
we abhor this… we created this.
Pollution: the beast spawned from man.

Shaun Abraham
 The Big Bad Eulogy

It was always here. It always will be.

It has sown its seeds in every novel, every story. It is rooted in our history, in our
behaviour, in our very fibre. There is no escaping it. If you don’t conform, society will
shun you. The dichotomy governs all, categorising us, labelling us.

It is the ultimate battle, the final stand, the eternal conflict. It is Good vs Evil; Dark versus
Light. There is no space for the grey, those who don’t fit. Those who have both dark and
light inside them. Our society is not built to handle them. It is not capable of handling
them.

And so, we could not handle the wolf. The big bad wolf was not allowed to live, because
of us. We did not let him live because he didn’t conform. We did not let him live,
because he was destitute. We threw him under the bus, or the car, in his case. He had
no money, he was starving. And so, when Mrs. Pig told him to get her children out of the
way, for a handsome price, he listened to her. He had no choice; no option of happy
ever after. He huffed and he puffed, and he blew their houses down, making sure he
hid the three babies in the woods, out of sight, out of mind.

Mrs. Pig had thought far ahead. She used the wolf for her own desire. The insurance
would pay well, the newspaper headlines would write the cheques.

Yes Mrs. Pig had thought far ahead, but not far enough. When the Wolf protested,
naming her complicit, panic persisted and she ran him to the floor, reversing to be sure.

And therein lies the tragedy. We cannot remember him for his good, for he did little. We
cannot remember him for his life, for it was dull, and tedious, and filled with anguish by
the end. His life, for the most part was uneventful, uninteresting. He was a wolf whose
character was unexceptional. What should we remember him for?

This is all a farce; we are a farce.

We do not remember him because we do not want to. He was neither good nor bad. We
cannot assign him any value, because our minds are not trained to. But this is no
excuse. We cannot let those like him, those who weren’t monsters or heroes, be
forgotten.

They were always here. They always will be.

Aashman Kumar
 The Half-Breed’s Daughter 
Hard lives and extreme weather.
Near the outskirts of England, lay towns that had not prospered for many decades and
were cursed by extreme conditions. Every town was connected by a path that went
through the forest that enclosed them; the forest held ghoulish creatures that varied
from vampires to half-breeds, leaving all folk in the town with melancholic faces and an
underlying sense of fear. December toppled over and in came the heavy tsunami of
snow. Travellers and hunters came, but never wanted to leave or could not...
Hard lives and extreme weather.
“Hurry Scarlet, you do not want to keep your Grandmother waiting”, bellowed Scarlet’s
mother, “also do not forget your great grandfather’s knife.” 
As Scarlet ran to the grotesque gate that separated the town and the thick layer of
green, which stretched for miles, she squinted up and found the very thin lining of the
saffron orb, which would have coruscated down if not for the grim grey clouds that
stayed motionless. She inhaled and took a step into the path leading to the unknown
abyss.
Every turn she drew her knife, every crunch of leaves and twigs she drew her knife and
every thud she drew her knife.
Scarlet held the black bone handle of the knife tightly to avoid becoming their prey.
Soon, she saw the faint outlines of her grandmother’s house. As she sprinted forward,
she allowed herself subconsciously to lower her defence. Spontaneously, a gust of icy
wind hit Scarlet’s back and she stopped abruptly.
As she halted a fury grey Brobdingnagian cloak jumped in front of her. The cloak turned
to reveal concealed blood-red eyes and tan-yellow teeth stained with blood. The
creature growled and pounced and extended its razor-sharp claws. The creature looked
like it was in a liminal state between human and wolf. The wolf was agile and fast, but
Scarlet was faster. She ducked and slid underneath the wolf piercing it and collecting its
rash fur as she slid. The now harmed hybrid limped sluggishly leaving a trail of rose-red
liquid. Scarlet, more cautiously this time, sprinted to the house.
Once inside she greeted her grandmother and unravelled her mother's lemon drizzle
cake. As she was about to leave, she was called by her grandmother. “Come here,
dear. Could you please use your knife to cut the cake?” “Sure, will do.” replied Scarlet.
As she took the knife out of its mahogany-brown casing a gold object dropped on the
floor. As Scarlet picked it up to inspect it, she noticed two letters skilfully engraved on it:
PR. As she analysed the ring, instantaneously she was hit by a plethora of memories.
She absconded abruptly and revisited the crevasse the wolf has flown from. She saw
the slim trail of ruby-red blood oozing towards a bush. She peered over the bush and
caught sight of a man lying with a navy-blue coat shivering. When Scarlet ran over, she
discovered that the wolf she had sliced was her father Peter Hood. When her father was
nursed back to normal health, he described how all the creatures in the forest were also
humans, forced to live a liminal life, neither fully human nor beast.
With time, Little Red educated the village and the travellers that passed through until the
creatures were feared no more.
With time, the liminal curse seemed to lift, and the Hood family remained whole through
the vicissitudes of their lifespan.

Athisaran Sivanesan
 The Easter Bunny

A beast of a bunny crouched behind a miniature house residing in the countryside,

peering longingly at the verdant landscape he had once called his home. And yet, in the
shadows he remained, for those pastures had belonged to the bunny that came before
the beast…

The bunny himself, known as Thumper by his peer, was previously the most alluring of his
warren. Due to his unique glamour, he had friends in abundance. Even more, his
vegetable patch nurtured the most succulent produce his land’s well-mineralised soil had
to offer. Best of all, he had gossamer fur – that softened with every touch – which was as
white as snow and would even have given Snow white a run for her money. His whiskers
and cheeks were perfectly trimmed and dimpled; it just helped his cause that Ra looked
upon him kindly. However, even with the greatest blessings known to man, he had an
irascible mind and was selfish like a fox, desiring excessively, despite the resources he
already had at his disposal. His excessive want eventually led to his horrid demise…

Whilst fumbling amongst the other adolescent rabbits in the lavishly verdant plains,
Thumper stumbled upon a construction he’d never seen before. It had a fine volcanic
red paint job and stood 30ft tall with a tractor guarding the entrance. It was outlined with
a deep, rich black and looked like it was old and weathered but the striking colours gave
it a contemporary appearance. He couldn’t help but wonder what it was until he
observed in bold, ‘MR JONES’ MANOR FARM’. Whilst admiring the barn’s industrial
brilliance, one thing raced in Thumper’s mind… food. He could already taste the
plethora of herbs on his tongue. Without a second thought, he was already halfway
down the hill and bouncing faster with every hop. Soon enough, he’d found himself at
the immense gates. With a great huff, he thrust the creaking door open, only to be
greeted by darkness.

Within the present, the same youthful rabbit dashes from county to county, ensuring he
evades every possible glance. He feels a strong sense of disdain as he places his
thousands of eggs across the nation. Despite the tons dispatched, his sack fails to
lighten. He thought his dreaded appearance was punishment enough, but his arduous
seasonal task always proved him wrong.

It took a while for Thumper’s eyes to adjust to his dusk environment, but when they did,
they were gifted with the most beautiful sight possible. A chicken was sat comfortably
within her nest and perched upon dazzling eggs covered with decorative designs. Some
blue, some pink and some green, and yet all equally mesmerising. They had captivating
swirls and stripes emblazoned on their fragile skin. Bewitched by the eggs’ beauty, the
bunny stepped forward. Then, as he took a touch, he was interrupted by an intimidating
voice. “Creature, what’re you doing?” Thumper quivered as he slowly turned to face a
god thrice his height and wielding a shovel. He wore a rugged jacket on top of his torn
overalls. “These eggs are my property, thief! You must be punished!” Thumper had
barely flinched when the shovel greeted him with great force. The poor rabbit went
halfway across the room and knocked over a dog’s drinking bowl. As he stirred,
Thumper took a dizzy look at himself in the water. He couldn’t have been more
bewildered.

It was a stunning shock at first but then realisation at what had just occurred dawned on
him. This most attractive rabbit awoke to find he had become the most appalling looking
rabbit, not just in the colony or warren, but in the world. His supple fur was rough, soiled
and there were bare patches showing skin covered in cuts or scratches. His now few
whiskers were bent or short and his facial features were squashed. Thumper began
whimpering and the 1.75m superior guffawed, then turned to anger. “Your eyes spoke
of greed greater than the fox who stole my chickens, apple cider and stuffed doughnuts!
He suffered from the loss of his tail and so now, you, a greater thief by far, must pay with
your freedom.” Thumper shrank, afraid of what was to come. “You wanted these
exquisite eggs for yourselves but now you’re condemned to sharing this gift with others!
EACH EASTER! From now on you are called The Easter Bunny!” Thumper immediately
attempted to scamper but was bound to the spot. The god spoke again with a sinister
tone. “Guess what, it’s your lucky season…Easter.”

To this day, The Easter bunny has been under oppressive rule.

To think he was:
once beautiful now hideous,
once friendly now scary,
once a playmate now a slave.

That’s the true story of the Easter Bunny. Maybe you’ll think twice before eating your
eggs this year.

Timothee Menuomba
 An Ode to the Bard
Love him or hate him, Shakespeare remains an iconic figure within the
literary canon, read on for a triplet of inventive pieces which allow us to see
the Bard in a modern way.

Contributors
Jawad Uddin
Shanuggan Sivakunalan
Yong Wang
 The Most Important of Them All

The most important author to study in English is… Shakespeare.

Of course, he has supposedly ‘shaken’ thousands of lives – that is, thousands of English
teachers’ lives. ‘And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake’ and literally burn myself
like a mindless wombat! The chances of two lovers rhyming at their first words –
laughable!
Can it be argued that ‘fair is foul, and foul is fair’ really makes sense at all?
Shakespeare’s plays totally make sense, with a sprinkle of fairy dust on Lysander’s eyes.
It’s not like he shows how dangerous love is when Romeo poisons himself for Juliet. It’s
not like he baffles us with a million ‘thee’s’ and ‘thy’s’ and ‘doth’s’ and ‘ay’s’, the
confusion is endless but still he appears, haunting our canon for hundreds of years.
The most important of them all… will it ever change?
Jawad Uddin
The L Word

How can one love another?

Hath they not realized it is not eternal?
Death shall reap their lover,
and none shall see them as admirable.

Art thou not tired and sick,

That their love is not requited?
Don't they realize it's God's trick?
And hat rue happiness hath never been sighted.

To hate the idea of love,

society rejects me.
But the death of the white dove,
Will cause the hate of love from thee.

To kiss love or to date,

Eventually thou'est heart will be filled with hate.

Shanuggan Sivakunalan
A Sonnet for A Sonnet

Shakespeare, Shakespeare, wherefore art thou Shakespeare?

Boredom never comes when reading thy plays.
Comedies, tragedies, histories, thou never fails to deliver,
Students of all ages love analysis essays.

A sonnet, a sonnet, a kingdom for a sonnet!

The qualities of thy soliloquys
Is too great for any maths teacher to admit,
Thou hast put monologues before trigonometry.

Romeo or Juliet that is the question,

Power of thy love is greater than pain of the students,
Displayed in the pupils’ joy and passion,
And the fact that their last four braincells are in fragments.

Thou art an English patron and champion,

And yet, thou art a villain.

Yong Wang
 Blue Lights
Inspired by Jorja Smith’s hit song ‘Blue Lights’ these speeches seek to
highlight the youth crime pandemic and talk about the need for a positive
youth presence on our streets.

Contributors

Emenike Mwim

Tony Ndukwu

Ben Gander

Kanishq Manocha

Yash Joshi

Ojas Tiwari
 The Mountain

Would you really trust your child on the streets of London now?
Risking his vulnerability, his naivety been exploited by the malicious?
Where only 50% of his thoughts are his own and the rest, he is told, influence?
Inevitable is this city, unless we make change.
Where are the 20,000-extra promised? Without them youths’ room this deadly mountain
where nobody can survive long enough to be happy and so fall, unsupported, down
from grace.
The view on the peak seems beautiful, but nothing lasts forever.
Without intervention, from protectors, carers, supporters, there is an endless cycle of
suffering.
Suffering, exploitation and loss.
Do not climb this mountain.

Ben Gander
 The Circle of Life

Death, destruction, dilapidation; the work of the devil.

Written in the infinite scriptures of time may be your child’s death warrant.
Engraved upon a knife… why?
Because our future, our youth, the young of today are pelted upon by the nuclear
missiles of peer pressure.
We need change. We need help. We need love, care, compassion.
“Blud, you know I’ve got your back”, “Yes bruv”, a classic conversation between two
children: your children.
Under their harmless tone glints a sharp piercing object; the tool of their red-handed
act.
Even the hardest shells have a soft underbelly… disaster ensues. Blood spilt. Our
children’s blood.
Death, destruction, dilapidation.

Kanishq Manocha, Yash Joshi and Ojas Tiwari

You

What colour are you? Are you white with ignorance and discrepancy or are you black
with bloody paws that remain unwashed?

Why has race always been so difficult to understand? For some of us it has always been
so difficult to just be ourselves. So difficult to claim our culture and grasp our opinions.

Why you?

They say the coppers don’t come for nothing.

Why can’t you just be somebody? Undefined by postcode.
The ‘stats’ say crime comes in percentages of hardship and depression, they forget
about the angular, childlike meetups, where the poison is preached, stealing your boy’s
adolescence.

Black, white and something in between. Why is there always a spectrum? Why is it
always so hard to fit between the lines and be accepted?

Outcast, ostracised, removed, that’s how some of us feel.

Envision those who say they’ll protect, you might conjure up an image of kindness,
passion and love, but in the moonlight, light reflecting off the crimson blade is enough
evidence to suggest your type. Pain staking, pathological pagans patrolling the pious
streets, pouncing on prey.

So be you. Don’t be controlled by gangs and crime.

Show your community, you’re in your prime.

Don’t kill others or sell drugs for a dime.

Because today is the day and now is the time.

To be

You.

Emenike Mwim and Tony Ndukwu

Thank you to all the students who have contributed their work, to quote J.K Rowling
‘Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.’
Editor: Miss Smith