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Regular news and insight from our many poets, writers, educators and facilitators

16 July 2022

Posted by Beth McKeeman

The Universe and Everything...

Juniors -  8 Young - 4

It’s up, up and away into the summer holidays this session. Our Writers blasted off into space with the James Webb Telescope, which has just sent back its first images.

These pictures, giving us views back in time 13 billion years, are being heralded as the start of a new space age, and speculation is running wild about what we might find. One of the eternal questions that could be answered is are we alone in the universe.
predominantly we seem to be siding on yes, we are alone. Though if not, maybe it would be on a microbial level or lifeforms we wouldn’t even recognise.

It’s a good starting point for speculative of science fiction. Our Young Writers suggested aliens might have gills, or look just like us with only one variation, or maybe be a living planet with no consciousness but still self sustaining and thriving.

If you look at how vast space is and what we already know or assume of it, it makes for a great playground for creativity. There’s diamond rain on Saturn, an endless storm on Jupiter, days which last years - how would life exist in these environments?

Using the new photos as inspiration, and with Cheryl Moskovitz’s poem Roll up, Roll Up as a prompt, we wrote universe poems.

The Young Writers then went on to watch Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye’s Origin Story - a performance poem. We thought about body language and tone of voice as we evolved our universe poems into 4 or 5 lines of spoken word. Although we may not be performers (yet?) the Junior Youth Theatre did a fantastic job performing The Birthday Party - the piece we wrote all the way back at the beginning of term. It was good to see something we had written live and a great way to finish the term.

Sadly, Susmita is now moving on, but we won’t forget the great times we’ve had with her and we look forward to having many of our writers back with us next term. Happy holidays!

Galaxy by Rumaysa

Universe by Arsh

Cosmos by Rafsan

Space by Rebecca

Telescope by Yusif

Stars by Eva

Poem inspired by James Webb images by Jessica

Space by Salsabeel

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