Stuff the Ethiopians

About this Poem

I was well known for my writing at school and this is probably my most famous bit of poetry. We'd just spent and English lesson looking at how personal tragedy always outweighed humanitarian tragedy despite the massive differences of scale. We were given homework to either write a short story or a poem about the problem. Typically, I did exactly the opposite of what I was requested just to stir things up. I used the most extreme humanitarian crisis I knew of at the time (the Ethiopian famine - those were the days of "we are the world") and wrote a poem about why I didn't care.

Some disclaimers: There are some words in this poem which could be racist or stereotyping especially given today's political climate. I was a schoolboy when I wrote this poem and I wrote it mainly to annoy people. If I'm still annoying people now, then I've exceeded past my own expectations.

I don't have any racial prejudices - especially not against Ethiopians, so please don't hassle me because I'm trying to present a piece of history as it was - and, of course, if I changed the words, it wouldn't rhyme.

Ok, disclaimers out of the way... here it is - as best I can remember off the top of my head anyway.

(btw: if there's anyone in the world who doesn't know, "tic tacs" are a rather pathetically small confection).