A competition launched by poet Karen McCarthy Woolf in aid of World Poetry Day has seen students from across the globe try their hand at writing poems.
McCarthy Woolf set 11 to 18-year-olds a series of weekly challenges to help inspire young people to use poetry as a way of responding to climate science.
"The response was remarkably strong and as you'll see from the poems here, very wide ranging in approach and reach," the poet said. |These young poets from around the world challenge us to think long and hard about humanity's impact on the planet in a manner that is provocative, witty, sophisticated and above all, heartfelt."
Launched by David Buckland's not-for-profit programme Cape Farewell, the new poetry programme SWITCH is aimed at encouraging young poets to explore climate change issues through the creation of poetry.
The winning poems, judged by McCarthy Woolf, will be revealed on the 29th April at a live event at Rich Mix, the east London arts venue.
A sample of the entries:
The Arctic Tern’s Prayer
Tell the air to hold me in the rushing heart of it
And keep its paths straight
Away from home let there be a land that
Flows with fish and flies
And let it taste like it tasted at home
Home take this salty scent of home from my head
Cut away the memory of its last ultraviolet
Flash beautiful beneath me
Don’t turn me to a twist of salt to fall to
Sea’s saltiness if I look back at my home
Let me look back just once let me
Look back
Mary Ann. 17, London
The Wooden Box
Handle with care. This wooden box contains
the earth’s endangered last remains.
The empty pocket of the punctured sky -
so small it might swallow itself in a gulp.
The slither of sunlight snagged on a branch -
the warmth of a smile ripped into rags.
The clouds that sag and shrivel on the ground -
like bruised balloons when the birthday’s over,
fallen flags when the battle’s been lost.
The trees that cling to the edge of existence -
branches like the bones of broken ballerinas.
The dribbling puddle of the polar icecap –
an open wound bleeding out into its cracks.
All that’s left of life is a footprint –
the raindrop flees its sky in fear.
We thought we had suitcases packed with time –
a refundable receipt guaranteed for a lifetime.
Jade, 17, North Yorkshire
No Return Policy
Welcome to Paradise Limited & Co
Est. dawn of time/discovery of Arctic
Our Great White Sale best bargains:
$3 for a pair of black-as-coal mining hearts
(perfect for energy company galas)
$5 for penguin & choking plastic bottles statue
on bloated seal skin by
neighborhood-water-bottle-dump
$7 for dicey packs of Gamble the Future cards
(aces exempt)
$9 for 5 gallons whitewash of conscience,
dirty hands, and oil spills
$11 for Channel no. 2050
(greasy cellophane/grocery bag scent)
$13 for fossil fuel magnets to tack on
refrigerators back home
$15 for three death metal/hard rock
mixtapes by Pollution Apocalypse
$17 for freeze-dried ‘not my fault’
excuses, water-resistant.
Thank you for shopping at Paradise.
Jamie, 14, Bangkok
The weekly challenges were posted on the Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network and will remain there as an inspirational resource for writers, and can be found here.