Analysis of Garbage KIds



Poisonous gasses fill the air.
The rotting smell is everywhere.
The sopping layers under my feet
seem to breed
pools of black oil.
No trace of clean soil
can be found
for several miles around.

Against the drifting garbage hill,
people are living still
Children are born here and never leave.
This hell on earth is what they believe
all there is to know.
And the older they grow,
the sicker it gets
in their blood and in their heads.

Behind every garbage truck that unloads
young children in greasy clothes
dig in the filth without gloves or masks
knowing that not fulfilling their awful tasks
means their lives will be worse than before
and their bodies will ache even more
They dig to get something to eat
and other basic things they need

Because the profit of the company must grow
and the children’s work is too slow
being weakened by the strong pollution
more working hours is the cruel solution
So now until late at night
the sky is filled with artificial light
to make them find more iron, copper or led
and earn the scarce meals they are fed


Scheme AABCDDEE FFGGHHXX XXIIJJBC HHKKLLMM
Poetic Form
Metre 10010101 0101110 010101011 111 1111 11111 111 110101 01010101 101101 101110101 111111101 11111 001011 01011 0110011 01100101101 1100101 100101111 10110101101 111111101 011011101 11111011 01010111 010101010011 00101111 1010101010 110101010010 1101111 011110101 11111101011 01011111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,031
Words 192
Sentences 8
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 212
Words per stanza (avg) 48

About this poem

Written after visiting the Stenk Meanchey landfill in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with Scott Neeson

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Submitted by ludy_b on October 08, 2021

Modified on April 10, 2023

57 sec read
39

Ludy Bührs

The topics she writes about are very diverse, so are the poetry styles she applies. As a Dutch translator and poet, having lived in Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh for 2.5 years, in 2008 she published "Op de ruïnes van een rijk" (On the Ruins of an Empire) ISBN 978-90-8834-483-1 with 60 poems based on her experiences there. In 2007 she received a Certificate of Accomplishment as one of The Best Poems and Poets of 2007 issued by poetry.com and the International Library of Poetry for her poem Choked Truth, her own translation of "Verstikte waarheid", one of the poems in the book. Born in 1956, she still works as an independent translator, translating from English into Dutch. more…

All Ludy Bührs poems | Ludy Bührs Books

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