Imagining The Future Poem by Leeds Young Author Eden Ottoman

Last month TSOTA attended the wonderful Leeds Culture Network Event-Imagining the Future. Sparked off by Leeds’ potential bid for European Capital of Culture 2023, a group of artists and producers in the city joined forces with Leeds Culture Network and asked us to imagine the future of our cultural landscape…

The main element of the event was an Open Space style discussion, an informal and participatory style of conversation where people can propose starting points for discussion, self-organise and collaborate. Members of the Leeds Young Authors group sat in on some of these conversations and created powerful poems in response to what they heard. Here’s one of our favourites from Eden Ottoman courtesy of Leeds Young Authors.

There are words flowing
Through the veins
of the people here,
Poetry flooding
Our high streets
You will not find cold
Sterile perfunctory
You will find beauty in abundance
In our tapping feet
and our fingers
On the pulse
Our city will find you,
Consume you.
You won’t realise how you love it
Until you leave us,
Yet we are hidden
We will wait 19 year to
allow ourselves to spill ink. Erupt
In a year of smatters
Of paint and plays
We know we are not yet perfect
But we will be
You will not be tamed here
Behave here,
artists are made to pirouette
through red tape.

 

By Eden Ottoman
Copy Rights
Leeds Young Authors

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