Poetry - IF Oxford · 10 | POETRY OF SCIENCE Euan, age 16 Magdalen College School apotheosis the fruit down low, under the dying embers of the sun we conjured the elements from the

PoetryOF SCIENCE

2018for the IF Oxford Science and Ideas Festival

in

12–22 October 2018Over 100 events across Oxford for everyone

Download the programme and book events atwww.if-oxford.com@Oxford_IF #IFOx2018

P O E T R Y O F SC I ENCE | 3

In March 2018, the Oxford science and ideas Festival, IF Oxford, asked young people to write a short poem on any topic of science, using any style. We had over 450 entries ranging from limericks and rap to haiku, acrostic poems and poems based on a shape. The winning entries and runners-up are all published here and these nine poems were performed at IF Oxford on Saturday 13 October 2018 in Oxford Town Hall. Poems came from home-schooled pupils and from 22 schools across Oxfordshire:

Primary schoolsAston Rowant CE PrimaryChandlings PrimaryDucklington CE Primary East Oxford PrimaryHailey CE PrimaryLadygrove Park PrimaryLewknor CE PrimaryOrchard Fields Community SchoolSt Andrews PrimarySt Ebbes CE PrimarySt Joseph’s PrimaryThe Ridgeway Primary Secondary schoolsAureus SchoolCranford HouseDidcot Girls SchoolHeadington SchoolKing Alfred’s AcademyMagdalen College SchoolOxford Spires AcademySt Helen and St KatharineThe Bicester SchoolThe Cherwell School

The judges were:Niall Munro is Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Director of the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre.

Kelley Swain has published several anthologies and was poet-in-residence at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in 2016.

Claire Hamnett is a physics teacher and leader of Oxfordshire Science Learning Partnership to support world-leading Science education for young people.

Dane Comerford is Director of IF Oxford

Cathy Rose is Events Manager, leading on the IF Oxford poetry competition.

In March 2017, Oxfordshire Science Festival asked young people to write a short poem on any topic of science, using any style. We had over 400 entries ranging from limericks and rap to haiku, acrostic poems and poems based on a shape.

The winning entries and runners-up are all published here. These nine poems were performed at the Oxfordshire Science Festival in Oxford Town Hall on Saturday 17 June 2017.

The word cloud on the cover of this anthology represents thousands of inspired words from pupils at the following schools:

Niall Munro is Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Director of the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre.



Tomasz Dobrzycki is a University of Oxford DPhil student and was a science-rapping contestant in the UK FameLab competition.

Dane Comerford is Director of the Oxfordshire Science Festival.

Cathy Rose is Events Manager, leading on the Oxfordshire Science Festival poetry competition.#OSF2017

Botley Primary Burford Secondary Didcot Girls’ SecondaryDr Radcliffe’s CE Primary Ducklington CE PrimaryFitzharrys SecondaryHarriers Banbury AcademyHeadington Preparatory King Alfred’s AcademyLadygrove Park Primary Madley Brook Primary

Marcham CE PrimaryMarlborough CE Secondary North Hinksey CE Primary Northbourne CE Primary St Blaise CE Primary St Joseph’s Catholic Primary St Mary & St John PrimaryRidgeway CE Primary University Technical College, OxfordshireWoodstock CE Primarytogether with some home-school pupils

Panel of Judges:












Panel of Judges: 12–22 October 2018Over 100 events across Oxford for everyone

Download the programme and book events atwww.if-oxford.com@Oxford_IF #IFOx2018

Thank you to our supporters and partners:

MAGAZINE












Panel of Judges:

4 | P O E T R Y O F SC I ENCE

Noah, age 7Chandlings School

ExperimentsElastic bands help make slings,X-rays help see bones and things.Potions can make you extremely strong,Electric circuits can be very long.Rubber is used a lot for shoes,Insulating stops blowing a fuse.Maths is useful to calculate money,Evolution is serious, not funny.Nitrogen is a gas in the air,Technology is here, there and everywhere.Science is fun and good for everyone.

Tom, age 7St Ebbes Primary School

VolcanoVolcano, volcanoOrange you carry into the air.Louder and Louder you roarCatastrophe! Spurting out lavaAshes grey night time skies instead of day,Now and again you explode; unpredictable no one knows.Orange, grey so beautiful – I’m just glad I don’t live near to you!


Rose, age 6Aston Rowant Primary School

SC I ENCE

School Years 1-2

GravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravityGravity

WinnerGravityGravity is all around,Watch me when I jump.I don’t fly to the moon,I come down with a bumpYou can’t see it but you can feel it,and see what it can doWithout it, just imagineWhat would happen toa kangaroo!

Finn, age 10St Andrew’s Primary School

Venus Fly Trap


Luke, age 11Chandlings School

InventionThe first of them all,Fire burning up the wall

Then the wheel to take the load,Much further down the road,

Took to the ground with hands to fill,With iron now to kill, kill, KILL!

Steam powered the nineteenth century,Creating railways, factory and industry,

Edison’s mind buzzed and shone,Click! A light then turned on,

A box whirred, a screen crackled to life,In invention with keys and full of bytes,

Yet to come time travel, 5d TVs,Tearing up the fabric of reality!

He slaughtersunsuspectinginsects brutally,

Ambushes witha fatal crunch.

He murders helplessflies and bugs.

He butchersspiders painfullyand then he eats them,joyously.

Once the time hasfinally come the fly trap perishes and without delay he is done.


Win

ner It’s late Autumn, the great oak is

dropping its leaves.One insignificant acorn, no differentto the rest, falls into a dark,gloomy, cold hole.

As cold winter comes in and ahorrid blizzard, far below the snowthere is a cracking and a pushing,a splurging and releasing, anopening and a bursting;Acorn’s hatching out a seed.

After months of cold winter windsThere’s a splash of spring’s colourSomething sprouts out of the ground.Flapping about, he flies high;Stretching, he climbs into the trees.

As summer comes in there’s a new tree.It’s our small, insignificant acorn,King of the forest; great, proud, smartest oak tree.

It’s late Autumn,and acorn is dropping its leaves.

TheInsignificant Acorn

Marianna, age 9St Andrew’s Primary School

School Years 3-6


Abigail, age 11Cranford House School

Wonder Women of ScienceMany women scientists of the past,Have handed us knowledge, detailed and vast.They discovered things that are new,And here are just a few….

Let’s us start with the founder of radiation,Marie Curie was filled with dedication.Discovering the Polonium and Radium elements,Curing cancer was the result of her experiments.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson got the qualification!The first female English doctor, she shocked the nation!The male doctors turned her away,But she opened the first women’s hospital, and gother way!

Mary Anning, fossil hunter on the beach,Palaeontologist extraordinaire; but never to teachFound dinosaur skeletons, millions of years oldScience and the world needed to be told.

Pioneers of the pastled the way.They inspired allwomen of today.Follow your talents,dreams and heart.Make a difference:play your part!


Mackenzie, age 12The Bicester School

Lessons from EinsteinI dove deep into the mind of Albert EinsteinIn hopes I could find his view point on lifeWith that being said who better to askExpecting his answer would have much to do with mathClearing his throat he looked straight at meAs I thought, here it comes, relativity theoriesInstead of that jargon I got a wink and a smileAs he said life is like riding a bikeTo keep your balance in all that you’re doingYou must in this life be continually movingI’d always heard Mr. Einstein was a genius per seBut simply put I learned a lot from Albert that day

Winner

1 0 | P O E T R Y O F SC I ENCE

Euan, age 16Magdalen College School

apotheosisthe fruitdown low, under the dying embers of the sunwe conjured the elements from the voidthe spark from inert stone whose smoke touched the heavens themselvesexultant in our promethean victorywe pronounced we areand rejoiceddrunk on the fermented forbidden fruit of destruction and Man said, fiat luxthe towerand we said, come

School Years 7-11

P O E T R Y O F SC I ENCE | 1 1

let us build a tower ascending to the heavens, and make ourselves a nameand as the chimneys scraped the skythe Machine bows down to Our willand nature itself yields its secrets (scorched earth, bottled) and still Man cried, fiat luxand in the endeffaced and overwrittenevents breed ideas in this palimpsest of human invention

and it would seem by now we should think before we act but (o God) the end justifies the means doesn’t it? …

and (a finger on the button) Man whispers fiat lux

DEFYNEdefyne.design

MAGAZINE

Produced by:

Documents

Poetry - IF Oxford · 10 | POETRY OF SCIENCE Euan, age 16 Magdalen College School apotheosis the fruit down low, under the dying embers of the sun we conjured the elements from the