On May 4th the Writers' Club@Columbus read a news story about the kidnapping of almost three hundred young women -- students attending school in Nigeria. Since Monday happily the story has received more attention but on Monday it was just a scantily covered blip on the radar screen. It made us think about how it is really interesting what gets covered in the news and what doesn't. When you compare to the kidnapping of these girls to the story about the missing airliner incident for instance, Benghazi or a host of other issues, the silence is deafening. Afterall the girls were taken almost a month ago. Our hearts go out to the students and their families and we wonder why and how the world would let this happen and could it happen here?

Typical group of students. Image ID: 1257320

I was happy to be back at school
I was happy she was back at school
I want to be a doctor when I grow up.
She wants to be a doctor when she gorws up.
I study my books everyday
She studies her books everyday.
But I went to school today
But she went to school today
And I was taken away
and she was taken away
Far far away
Far far away
By men with guns and real big trucks
By men with guns and real big trucks
They pulled my hair and grabbed my friends too.
I can't imagine what they did to her.
Tey took my books away and killed my teacher.
I can't imagine what they did to her.
I saw my friend die today
I can't imagine what they did to her.
- Lenny Collado

Bad Day @ School

Nigeria land of what?
Desperate men with guns
shoot and cut
school girls
fools whirl into the classroom
killing lawyers future
filling their pockets with virgin slaves
12 dollars gets u 2
but it's not on channel 2
or MSNBC to see
who cares about black girls from Africa?
where r our soldiers?
What no drones?
nobodies home
can we burn their books?
clean their bones?
- Rodger Taylor

[African American school children; Howard Orphanage and Industrial School.] Image ID: 1260996

Bad Day @ School 2

The tick tack of the bomb
made the wall fall like paper
crumbling my heart, my mind.
My God,
I feel trapped with a place to go.
Dead eyed soldiers point terror pistols loaded with hate.
Grabbed away to a place called no where.
Nobody knows where we are.
Nobody knows what we feel.
we're not on TV
I wonder if they are going to save me
I wonder if there's gonna be school next week
I dig my feet in the ground to stay warm
my mind is stained with blood and prayer
- Group poem