Instructions: First read through the poem, then take a minute to analyze the language. After you feel you have done this for long enough, read the excerpt at the bottom of the poem. Once you have read this, go back and read through the poem.

Cages

By Ryan Carter

Trapped inside from the blaze of guns

We rarely see the refreshing sun

A destruction of their own creation

Our “protectors” revel at our loss

Father says I need to stay inside

Any shifting behind the door, hide

While he races on top of the buildings

Living from day to day

Playground turned into a plain

As neighbours flee by train

Friends no longer present

Floated away like clouds, forever they ascend

Finally father arrives home

With paper we would make planes

Soaring into a land of liberty

Rights no longer shackled in chains

Possibilities with no end in sight

Maybe that’s where they all floated off to

Vast green grass covered in dew

Land where people hold the might

Gliding across a golden magenta sky

Leaving behind what little we had, severing our last ties

My dreams blossoming into reality

Nearing the light at the end of the tunnel

Vast metal and glass prisms coat the ground

Our final refuge found at last

But into the birds nest

Black crows plumet upon us

That light at the end of a tunnel

Ends up being a window

Dreams looking back within depressing reflections

Trapped in the empty abyss

Dad repeating these foreign sounds

“No law respecting establishment of religion”

Crows dragging us to a metal raptor

Plucked from sanctuary

Trapped in a tin can

Fear streaming from mom and dad’s silhouettes

Return to our bleak world

As even the ice of promise melts

This poem is from the point of view of a 6-7 year old child that is from Syria, and is part of the Sunni Islam majority that is being persecuted by the Shi’a Islam minority that has control of the government. Because of the ongoing civil war going on in Syria, as part of a government attempt to control the public they put a tighter grip on their citizens. However the child’s family is caught in the crossfire of this, with the destruction of the war making their lives harder and harder and the government checkpoints requesting for members of the public to join the armed forces to stop the civil war.The third line of the first stanza the “their” is a reference to the government and their military power over the Syrian Rebels. At the beginning and through to the point right before they arrive in the United States, the poem has a somewhat consistent rhyme scheme as the child is more or less in a state of daydreaming, hoping for change or a better future than actually has that future put right before them. The change of this to a less lyrical and winding flow of the poem I chose on purpose to really emphasize the confusion and uncertainty of what is happening in the eyes of the child.