Being a foreign lecturer in a UK education system is a constant learning,
You can see my footsteps from Ave Lira to Barras Lane
I am a lecturer owing to my passion for helping others, and not the earning,
playing with victimisation to get a promotion would be lame.

Decolonising the way of teaching is more than just a reference list,
It is about examples, space, expression of knowledge and emotional connection,
But I’ve been told my teaching approach is not academic, but rather a myth
Engagement rather than attendance is important, but you’ll see it in the next section.

Some days will be seen as King Midas and you will be amazed,
It is an imposter who lives in me and my recurrent ocean of ‘typos’,
Some days it is more important to say the right things and be in the right place
Keep walking, do not listen to those dinosaurs, they are only psychos.

In the centre of the picture should be the student, not the teacher
Learning is playing, the classroom is the stage, and I am a clown
I try to tell students, to doubt everything even me, as I am not the preacher
Life and teaching are like a seesaw, so let’s enjoy it even when we are up or down.

There are amazing colleagues who are part of my community of learning,
when asking for help, very rarely they say never,
Despite the workload and other challenges, we do it not for the earning
They are my role models in teaching and learning forever.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

by Nathaniel Ocquaye

When I left my land,
Nothing felt right:
The expectation of a place unknown,
To which I was flown,
Where I became a foreigner.

Princes on Fleet Street!
Princesses in Spitalfields!
With loneliness for companionship
Did contemplate their return,
When I became a foreigner.

Loneliness, o dear loneliness!
‘Twas like a friend,
‘Twas like a foe,
Which did keep my eyes awake,
For the break of day!

I looked up
Into the plane-tainted skies of London
And longed for home.
I looked down
At the restless bubbling Thames
And fell in love with England.

I am a foreigner in a foreign land:
With tea and scones for my delight,
Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Street
For my amusement;
And so-and-so station,
Now leads me home –
Where I am a foreigner.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

To be teaching is a privilege,
To be learning is a must.
Both are rolled up into
The best lecturers of us.

We put our work into our learners,
We nourish and enable.
We ask them all to bring with them
Something for our collective ‘table’

Not all will share our joy of course,
To them we can be a chore.
They may not be connected to
The subjects we adore.

And therein lies the challenge –
To put our-selves in their shoes.
To engage them in real learning
Or just talk at them – you choose.

The former takes some courage,
To leave time for silent space.
To understand they aren’t all one
In their understanding or their pace.

And so the world that we inhabit,
Is endlessly engaging.
Although at times it can also be
Frustrating and enraging!

But I wouldn’t change a year of it,
A moment or a day
And I am proud to say I am
Still learning on the way.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Existential threat is brewing in my cup.
The fumes of despair gently wafting up.

Don’t judge!

Naught by a mild case of impending doom,
a pile of marking and various deadlines loom.

I am fine, just fine. Fine.
Nothing to worry.

No one showed up to the webinar room.
Apparently, I didn’t send the link for Zoom.

Also I forgot to check the Moodle forums.
Gotta run to a meeting now so they have a quorum.

No. No, I still don’t know what that means.
Can I just have a sip of my coffee please.

My fountain pen leaked all over my backpack.
I stress clenched and another tooth cracked.

Brain the size of a galaxy—and teeny tiny office space.
Oh wait, we are hotdesking now—I make a sour face.

Did I press ‘send’ on that email?
Yup I am living a fairy tale!

Our Article was published last week!
I am on a roll with my output streak!

Don’t judge me by my horrible rhyme!
I am writing this way past my normal bedtime.

Did I tell? My tbr* pile fell!
I think it registered on the Richter scale.

Still not as heavy as the guilt about all the unticked ‘To Dos’.
Don’t worry I am just having the Monday evening blues.

The plumes of despair gently wafting by.
As I stare into my cup and not so gently cry.

I am fine, just fine. Fine.
Nothing to worry.

*to be read (tbr)

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Why are some so successful peddling pedagogy
with advice that is like Instagram poetry?

A mix of truisms, oldies, and basic tips,
is this really what we are going to be stuck with?

The same things, over and over and over,
I crash from idealism to stone cold sober.

Where is the challenge?
Does this rhyme with orange?

Never mind, back to basics,
just make it a bloody remix.

What is my purpose, moving this role,
into which I pour heart, mind and soul?

I am frustrated being stuck
in a structure that sucks
the lifeblood out of excitement,
as long as we can prove fucking constructive alignment!

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Tick Tock ! Tick Tock !
This clock never stops.
Just an endless stream of dreary drudge,
and days filled with endless knocks.
My mind slips back to wonder on opportunities not done,
of adventure, excitement and days spent simply with fun.
A toxic manager prowls the space,
an aggressive bully boy with hate on his face.
Belittling colleagues on a daily basis causing
untold stress in sacred family places.
How do I move on from such a despicable place?
I am chained to my mortgage with no chance of escape.
Head down and work on and hope I don’t get a mention,
counting down the days till I can draw my pension.
Here we go again.
Wasting days with students while pretending to be a friend.
Satisfaction surveys don’t have value.
Today’s student voice is just so shallow.
Yet here we are driving on,
working in a sector that chants its own swan song.
Colleagues before me all get promoted.
No skills, no experience – they just get things ‘sorted’.
Every day academic glory gets aborted.
Yet where do I sit in this bonfire of vanities ?
Shaped by the pressure of an increasing mortgage fee.
I am chained to my desk like some lonely lifer,
trying to hide from such absurd banality.
Darkness is falling across this concrete land.
My back aches, my hand is sore as I try to understand,
the writing before me but its just so bad.
Littered with mistakes that make me sad.
This students’ degree is at stake.
But what’s this I spy ? Could it be ?
A section copied from ChatGPT !
The long hard day goes by.
Working every hour till I go home to cry.
Is a life spent with no life skills a life had at all ?
Or is it something worse like a shadowy pall ?
If i could reach back to my younger self and whisper in my ear
I would say walk on and don’t look in – become an engineer.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Knowledge once revered,
Now sold, consumerism’s grip,
Learning’s soul obscured.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

The demise of self to find,
Draw away now,
as if drifting back to sleep,

Draw back,
Through all those memories that you have,
All those experiences.

Tell me,
Tell me what is it,
What memory do you fix upon?

Like the roulette wheel
What number is found,
where does the cognitive rest,
Tumbling and bouncing through the subconscious.

What’s the memory that makes you most happy,
Warm, contented, touched, safe.

Where are you rested now?
Like a leaf fallen and blown by an autumnal wind,

Draw away now
Go to that place that makes you feel warm,
Under the duvet on a Sunday morning
Knowing you have nothing to do
Rolling back into the embrace of a lover

Being tugged at by a kite string as a child,
Wondering could it really lift you to fly,
Where does the true self reside?
In the cracks between Ego, Humility, pride awareness, consciousness, experience,
I can’t tell you.
But I can offer you the premise of play,
The light of joy for the soul

So, put on that warm familiar jumper,
Those weekend ‘no one will see’ clothes,
Reside in front of an open fire when mother nature reminds us of our insignificance,
As we are like a conscious thread within the fabric of time,

My passionate plea is just,
Draw together now,
make that celestial tapestry of consciousness, rich, varied and challenging,
Each star in the sky, each grain of sand,
Is vital within the consciousness of change,

Hesse, Tolle, Brunton, Freud, Jung, Schopenhauer, Bill.
I know Bill,
On first name terms,
All act as beacons of light,
All these lights allow us to navigate within the dark,
Or as Nietzsche would suggest stare into the void and ask the question
Why?

The cloud of unknowing is something society has settled on as fact,
So, I ask you to move on from this,
Draw away now in you minds
Close your eyes,
Go to that place of complete happiness.
Remember it,
Write it down,
A word
A picture
A thought

This is what others see as innovation,
I see it as celestial consciousness,
We innovate.

The compassion shown,
When someone looks deep into your eyes,
And asks you for vulnerability.

That feeling when someone who truly knows you,
Cuddles you and doesn’t let you go,

All these things lead us to feelings of an experience,
If you believe, as I do that all living things that can illicit experience have a consciousness,
Then the world is a truly beautiful tapestry of wonder,

No matter your belief
Your doctrine
Your stumbling blocks
Your spiritual perspective
We all carry something
What debt do you have to pay?
What is it that holds you back

Draw away now,
Draw back to that place,

So, the question that resides is,
Are you willing to listen?
Are you willing to consider alternatives?
Are you willing to live on the fringe?
On the edge of chaos,
To make a camp on the boarders of your truths,
Draw away to see.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

In academia’s halls, two decades worn,
A scholar’s journey, bound by duty’s tether,
The Vice Chancellor’s letter, like a thorn,
Congratulates, yet burdens with its feather.

Endless drudge, like shadows, cloak the soul,
A dark blanket, woven with routine’s thread,
In silent tears, tales of lost dreams unfold,
As thrilling opportunities lie dormant, unsaid.

The letter’s words, a bittersweet decree,
Twenty years of ‘service,’ engraved in ink,
Yet within its lines, a lament, I see,
For the paths untaken, lost in time’s blink.

Oh, life’s lament, in twilight’s embrace,
For the scholar’s heart, heavy with regret,
In echoes of what could have been, we trace,
The weight of years, a somber silhouette.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Hold that Duchenne smile
behind those white teeth
Hold back the false gratitude
Behind that social reflux and upwelling bile
Hide away the pursed lip service
behind that tense and cast iron face
It’s not me that you fear
that creativity trapped internal hurts
Wrapped up in those words of hate spoken
That cloud of unknowing will forever mask the sunset
The sunset of kindness cast within the furnace that is your kintsugi soul
You are loved
Just say those words
Call out amongst the battle cries of the fallen
Those stuck with the lost
Hold back those crocodile tears my love
As they fall apron the dry ground of pain unresolved
Of trauma held down by the guards of your mind.
Allow the levy to break
Allow the true self to form
You are precious 💖
Black dog i would rather deal my chaos and your bite
Than spend a day managing your waterfall of lies.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Lonely scrolling a world of nameless faces.
Left asking about other people’s experiences
Count those around you that you trust.
Tick tock data bytes
What’s your sacrifice
What do you draw to the table as a burnt offering
Community, connection, love, your mind, your body…
Swipe left if your self is obsessed with a fallacy of perception.
Move quickly and ensure your communication hurts others
Tick tock data bytes
Thousands of followers of the lies.
Post positive a pyramid scheme of life. Self-demise not self-actualisation. Self-death. a funeral of the forgotten unfollowed
Spring sunshine warms my face just for a moment of valid reconnection. Rewilding. Becoming. disconnect to reconnect.
No matter the start.
The positivity
consumer fetishism resides waiting in the shadows
Whispering into your soul, of your big break.
We commoditise and sell the product of love, friendship, our realities
Where is the present state?
Where is the truth?
Where is your God?
Tick tock data bytes
So, we rest on the swamp of anxiety, irrationality and obsession.
Trying for eternity to place a foundation stone.
As a gathered crowd laugh on.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Humanism and the eternal search for answers
We climb, travel, battle and struggle to know

I see the scattering of consequences
Like the rose petal falling away from the head
Tumbling, caught by gravity and air

Fetish, products, answers and ideas
Each being delivered as a solution
Only adding to the complexity posed by a lack of identity

We don’t know who we are
We don’t know where we are

The greatest of ironies is the self is never far from us
Dwelling within, waiting for love
Don’t look for help from outside
Or strain for reason

The image and impression we are aching to know
Stands revealed, branded to the soul
But ignored like the vagrant around affluence.

The senses troubled no longer
The peace being aired in the cold of a winter morning
Pure, still, peace
A blade of grass encased by frost
Feeling the touch of dawns warmth

We are so loved
We have forgotten how to love
Manifestation of nature and grace

Drift within this space like free radicals
Unattached and unconcerned
Not captured or conditioned by societal expectations

Listen to the chatter of the speaking departed
Bobok gatherings a gift
A loving residue of those happily drifting
Other worldly sirens

Connect to the core of the earth and soul
Stilled and resonant to being not just doing.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Hello boy self

I know what you have been through
As I am the result

Hello man self

I am being segregated
The noises are too much
They won’t let me talk
I know what I mean but they don’t understand me
I don’t talk in riddles like they say
I am not to chatty

Hello boy self

I am so sorry they don’t understand you
Just remember that you are thinking on a level imperceptible to them
You see the world as a rainbow not binary black and white

Hello man self

they put me in special needs classes
Like I have done wrong
I wasn’t arguing I just felt differently
I just wanted to be allowed to make a point

Hello boy self

You are an innovator
A passionate educator
An agent of change and conversation
You’re such a shining light for others
Just remain true to self

hello man self

They say I am disruptive
That I chat to much and ruin it for others
I just want a space to make stuff make more sense
There is no fertile ground for me
I just ask questions as reassurance

Hello boy self

I am suddenly finding a voice
A creditable space to be
A value of a true self identity
All that struggle is what forged this jewel
Diamonds are only born from extremes

Hello man self

I don’t have much energy remaining
Every day I am depreciated
Just a small word or phrase
Like a emerging butterfly drying the ink on its wings
Only to be taken on first flight

Hello boy self

I love you
You are loved by me
You have a home within this fractured heart
You are at its core
Like the CENTRE of existence
I live through you and your voice lives on.

I will speak your words to the masses
I will change the way they see
I will honor the pain we have lived
You are me.

We commune,
We drew close for a second or three,
Becoming aware of the privileges that stained our Sunday best,

Drawn in to a confrontation with the perception of self,
Broken,
Broken,
Reformed,
Broken.

The broken body the broken mind,
The diamonds drawn up thought he vulnerabilities shared,
Hold hands and brace against the winds,
Coming to a point of construct,
Kintsugi,
aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold,
Broken,
Broken,
Reformed,
Broken.

Clear Horizon,
Past emotional residue,
Like a field of grass on a spring dawn morning
Such depth of connection forged ion the refiners fire of self
A permanence and lasting awareness
We commune

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Emanate from the soul
Still waters of principial awareness
A reflection of self
A manifestation of present

The mind is still
When it stops thought
And goes beyond time

The problem of the modern world is
We no longer have the patience to wait
For the whispers of the soul

The imaginal cells of transformation
The dawning of the butterfly
From the cellular world within the chrysalis

We all ache
Yearning for our true form
Primally aware
But captured by capitalism and ease
Broken but resonant
Denying the soul
Crushing the whisper

True beauty of becoming aware
Through the process of unknowing
Allowing for the purest emergence
Upwelling through vulnerability and exposure
Bathing the still wet wing-ink
In the dawning of eternal light.

Maybe its not for me??

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Outside, a bird flew
At the windowpane. Inside
We framed knowledge in.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty. 

Does Dionysus drift through your entangled ecologies?
Does the haunting swan echo like the harmonious language
of power and politics?
Wait, who goes there?

The children dance by the rhapsodic moonlight,
they swan aimlessly like a sonata, its
discourse ringing crystal clear,
chiming and reverberating like the altar of Big Ben.

Hark!
There goes power and glory,
like Apollo riding a river of warped ideologies.
Be still and fear not.
For the ancient myth blossoms
like a melodic harmony.

As you sit and dictate your decisions
I become like bell hooks,
“Slowly estranged from education.”
Its altar no longer rhapsodic,
in its ecologies, disentangled.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty.