Leeds Young Authors: influenced by my father

Darren is a member of the team from Leeds Young Authors (LYA) that hopes to represent Leeds at the Brave New Voices (BNV) International Youth Poetry Festival in Washington DC in July. These young poets are still looking for donations and sponsorship so please help however you can!

 

“My name is Darren-George Phillip. I’m 18 years of age. I’ve always wanted to experience life to the fullest and to share my experiences with other people. Poetry allows me to experience life in different ways, to gain new knowledge, to share and to educate. If I was to ask myself, why do I want to go to DC to participate in Brave New Voices?  I would answer, to gain experience, improve my knowledge, my teaching, the way I use words to educate others.

 

I come from my home island of Papua New Guinea, an island very different from this one – there is less concrete and more culture, perhaps. Coming from PNG to England at the age of four gave me a fresh perspective on just how different people live in the Western world. Growing up here, I am hugely influenced by my father:

 

He is the vacuum of space

 

that surrounds me

 

giving me my form

 

I’ve come to radiate my light

 

on everybody I come across

 

His sun

 

When using poetry to teach, to educate, my main objective is to boost the confidence of young black people. Educating to aspire could literally be as simple as when a father asks his son, what do you want to be when you grow up? Words, questions, lines, stanzas, can all come together to question and destroy the limitations that society and schools often set for us, without even knowing it. Living in Chapeltown, Leeds, has given me a first-hand view of the absence of aspirations ‘in the hood’. But my Dad has always taught me that nothing is impossible. So I will scream and kick to be heard, and use my poetry to help teach others to aspire.