Rediscovered George Michael Poems Show His Childhood Genius

Two poems by an 11-year-old George Michael have been found by one of his childhood friends, confirming the singer’s poetic ability was apparent from a young age.

(Source: SWNS)

Writing poetry in school is, for most people, a lamentable experience any evidence of which gets filed away under ‘incredibly embarrassing, don’t uncover!’ However, when 51-year-old Penny Ling was going through her 1974 year book she uncovered two poems by her classmate Georgios Panayiotou, who you may know as Wham singer George Michael.

(Source: SWNS)

In and interview about the discovery, Ling described what lead her to her freakin’ awesome discovery:

“My sister had recognised his sister at an awards ceremony George Michael was attending, and came back and said ‘you will never guess who I met. I think she got his autograph. At the time my sister was a buyer at Tesco and she got taken to the ceremony by one of her customers. […] When she told me, I then went to my 1974 yearbook and looked through it and lo and behold there were two poems from George Michael.”

“The whole school was represented in the book. It was published once a year. The only people that know about it were friends of mine who were massive George Michael fans. I kept my yearbook locked away in a cupboard.”

What is interesting about the poems from a writing perspective is that there are deep subjects being dealt with, and (particularly in ‘The Story Of A Horse’), the deep subjects are dealt with in a quite subtle manner. When you read poetry typically from children of that age, the emotional journey is very explicitly signposted with ‘how that makes me feel’ but here the emotion is expressed solely through the narrative, which I find pretty freakin’ impressive for such a young writer (sorry to get all english major on you).

(Source: SWNS)

The poems show us that not only was George Michael the great songwriter that we know him to be, but that he was writing from a young age, and it lets us see a little more into the development of how he became the prominent figure he was. I love it when work from an artist, singer, or writer is discovered because it changes, or at least supports, so much about what we already interpreted about that person. specially in an instance like this, where the poetry is so sincere and personal.

Ling went on to describe how she knew Michael back in their schooldays:

“The reason I remember him is he lived at the back of my best friend’s house in Burnt Oak, London. She lived in a cul-de-sac and over the back was a bit of wasteland and sometimes we would play in the cul-de-sac if we needed a hard surface – George Michael joined in. We would play cowboys and indians, pogo-sticking – how long you could bounce on a stick without falling off – hopscotch, the usual kids games.”

(Source: Instagram)

George Michael super-fans will doubtless be wanting to get there hands on a copy of the poems, but I can’t see Ling parting with them. The book is so personal to her as well as George Michael, so I’d hang on to it if I were her!

 

Do you have any interesting connections to celebrities, if so let me know, the more tenuous the better ha! AAx

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