There'a a new kid on the block by Jack Prelutsky ; Scholastic, N.Y. 1984
Back in the Playground Blues by Adrian Mitchell, in The Kingfisher Book of Children's Poetry, selected by Michael Rosen.
Cloud Busting by Malorie Blackman (not exactly a poem but told in verse)
The poetry store : your one stop shop for poems / compiled by Paul Cookson. London : Hodder Children's Books, 2005
Out of order / compiled by Andrew Fusek Peters. London ; Evans brothers, 2002
The Immigrants...
Craig Chirinda
When the job market is tough and you can’t find employment; you blame it on the immigrants.
When love doesn’t love you and no-one wants to date you; 'it’s because of the immigrants'.
When you wonder why you are dumb, sick, and broke; you link the cause to immigrants.
All your miseries, misfortunes, misdeeds and mistimings; you attribute them to immigrants.
You never think objectively, you never take responsibility; you simply blame the immigrants.
Maybe you cause your own problems; maybe your misery is because of your own traits.
Maybe you were meant to struggle while they flourish; maybe unhappiness is your fate.
Maybe you’re always in the wrong place at the wrong time; maybe you’re always late.
OR...
Maybe love loves you after-all; maybe one day you’ll find your perfect mate.
Maybe it isn’t because of the immigrants; maybe they don’t deserve your hate.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-immigrants/
Habib Fare
Walking on the thread of hope
Stretched between the time and place
Over the deep valley
Watching our parts that felled down
Floating on their intense chests
Under a cloud of fear
Of the unknown
Within their invisible winding – sheets
Embroidered by the forgetfulness chants
1997
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/immigrants-2/
Refugee Blues
W.H.Auden
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.
Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.
In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.
The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.
Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?
Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.
Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.
Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.
Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.
Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.
Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.
Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.
Apirana Taylor / Parihaka
http://www.nzine.co.nz/features/apirana_taylor.html. Also on his CD Footprints in Tears, Thumb Prints in Blood. Another one that may be suitable on the same CD is Zig Zag Roads, which looks at the purchase of Pakeha land and the confiscation of Maori land for the creation of roads in Taranaki.
Another book on Parihaka, the art of Passive Resistance published by Wellington City Gallery in 2001 It includes art work, history, and a collection of poems about Parihaka. Highly recommended.
POEMS
A poem a day (NZ poets)
http://nzpoems.blogspot.co.nz/
The Children's Poetry Archive
http://www.poetryarchive.org/childrensarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1509
Poetry Archive
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/home.do
Poem Hunter:
http://www.poemhunter.com/
Poetry Express
http://www.poetryexpress.org/