It’s hard to believe that today is the end of the first week of the Anjali House Writing Workshop. It always goes so fast. But already we accomplished a great deal. I decided to have this year’s theme be about change. I started off by playing David Bowie’s song, Changes, and reading them the words out loud.  To be honest, they weren’t all that impressed by the music. But the “brainstorming” session which followed showed that they clearly heard what he was saying. The concept of Time became the centrepiece of our discussion: what it is, how it changes us, how it changes the planet, how it changes their country. For the following few days, we continued to discuss and write poems, about change, time, love, weather, politics, first in groups and then individually. Here is one of their group poems:
Time in the Future
 
 Time changes everything.
Time makes me interesting.
Something new to old, something old to new.
 
Time can make the future true,
change the bad place to good.
We can learn everything around the world.
Time makes me frightened and excited,
feelings can make you smile.
Love can make you cry.
 
The road is important.
Accidents can happen.
I want to live on another planet, but
I am happy to live in Cambodia.
Countries can change.
 
All change is important.
This is the road of our life.
 
Carrying on the idea of change, I wanted to make some changes to the program itself this year, so we tried an experiment. After a few days of writing poems in English, I said, “Okay. Now we are going to write another poem, but this time in Khmer.” Their reaction was quite surprising. Most of them found this very, very hard. None of them had ever been asked to write poetry in Khmer school. To them, Khmer poetry is only written in the traditional forms. Imagine if the only poetry we knew were poems like sestinas, a complicated form with distinct rules, and sung! They couldn’t imagine writing Khmer poems in free verse, and when they tried, their poems automatically fell into the traditional rhythm. But all of this led to a discussion of whether their thinking in Khmer is different from their thinking in English. It’s a very difficult idea — what role does language play in conceptual thought? But I then told them about some poets in Phnom Penh who are writing new styles of poetry in Khmer, and we discussed how poetry itself can change. And they can be a part of that change. All they have to do is write. And they really were excited by this, the idea that by writing they can gain power.
The role of writing as a weapon formed a part of another discussion we had, perhaps the most important discussion of all, given everything that is happening now in their country. I wanted to know how aware they were of the results of the recent elections, the demonstrations that followed, including that of the factory workers and the subsequent killings. Siem Reap is a long way from Phnom Penh, and not only geographically. But the kids knew it all, and I wanted to give them an opportunity to discuss it in a safe and confidential place. I’ll tell you about the amazing results of that discussion next time.
So tomorrow is the weekend. I’m sure I’ll find lots to do, but mainly I’m looking forward to some more sleep.