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30 November 2021

Posted by Tabby Hayward

WE ARE CELLULAR

This week we were looking again at the About Us competition - but this time from the angle of the human body!

We started by thinking of similes, metaphors or kennings (compound metaphors, used in Old English and Old Norse poetry!) to describe different parts of the body, including bloody, bones, skin and the skeleton.

Here's a collaborative group poem made up of some of these!

Soft-shield
Blood-barrier

Body-stones
Muscle-crutch
Calcium-swords
Porcelain-rod

Thousands of tiny donuts
Blood is an internal heating system,
my heart is a faulty
boiler whenever
I look at you.





















Like many many Skittles, they flow
through our rivers and
creeks. A liquid
carrying air by use of little faery-like TicTacs,
into limbs
and bones, into hands and fingers,
the holy saviour that keeps us breathing.

Next, we looked at the resource on the discovery of cells, by English scientist Robert Hooke, and at cell migration. We read Jack Cooper's poem 'Micrographia 1665' about the discovery of cells as inspiration.

This inspired poems thinking about metaphors/similes for cells, particularly how they migrate, like wild animals or birds, and connections we could make between cells and the wider universe, and us and human relationships. 

There's some really exciting poems developing for the competition - don't forget to submit your work by 19th December!

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