Liz Niven is a Glasgow-born, Dumfries-based writer. She publishes poetry in English and Scots and delivers creative writing workshops for bodies including the Scottish Poetry Library, London Poetry Society, National Galleries Scotland. She has written and edited a wide range of education resources for poetry and for Scots language.
The perfit sodger
"The landmine is eternally prepared to take victims. It is the perfect
soldier."
Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel peace prize winner & founding coordinator
of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines
Aka Ra thinks he's thirtie,
he's no shair.
Orphant in Cambodia,
he wis telt,
at five year aul,
hou tae lay lanmines,
his wee wean's finngers
perfit fir the joab.
Mine ordnance is good,
and if an orphan blows himself up,
who will care? said the Khmer Rouge,
wi thir shair fouth o wean sodgers.
Muckle piles o mines, mortars, rockets, claymores, grenades
fill Aka Ra's gairden,
wappens he's howked oot the grun.
Noo,
ootside his beild o bamboo an tin
thir's shovel, hammer, wrench.
His life gien up
tae diggin up the orra seed he'd plantit.
Back to New Writing
