The twin towers of Holy Cross Church point skyward like rockets ready for a mission to Mars.
And after a visit by the Children’s Laureate to a North Belfast primary school such a line could soon be the launchpad for a glittering life in poetry.
Joseph Coelho was at Mercy Primary on the Crumlin Road this week where he regaled the girls of P5 and P6 with tales of secret gardens and disappearing statues all borne out of a concrete English estate transformed by the imagination of a young boy with an eye for a good story.
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The acclaimed author looked out on a rapt audience as he took them on a journey from the simile to the one-word poem and how to craft a world only the imagination can conjure. The pupils were hooked on every word as the poet told them how he looked from a Roehampton tower block across the trees to a far off magical kingdom only visible to his mind’s eye.
And his mission to Belfast, he said, was to encourage the girls “to create their own stories” from the world around them whether they live in a “house, a flat or a boat”.
“Does anyone know what a simile is?”, he asked the girls who were clearly well versed in the ‘like’ or ‘as’ of this literary device. “As brown as toffee,” they shouted back quoting one of his own poems at the visiting author.
A MORERAP poem, he told them used Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Rhyme, Emotion, Repetition, Alliteration and Personification - all devices to help the North Belfast girls see the opportunity for poetry and stories on streets and hillsides that surround their school. “Drip feed them into your poetry”, he told them as they promised to carry a notebook with them in future to ensure no moments of inspiration are ever lost.
Speaking ahead of the event, Joseph, who became the Waterstones Children’s Laureate in July, said his aim is simply to get young people to read more.
He added: “There’s a lot of attention for their time because things are constantly changing and the debate over books or digital is well aired. But there’s a huge benefit from engaging with text, with the printed word, or indeed the digital word.
"Getting into the practice of absorbing large amounts of information through quiet reflection and reading - fact or fiction, what ever a child’s interest is. Ultimately I want children to read for pleasure. to discover what their own passion is.”
The visit was organised by the BookTrust and Arts Council NI, with the Trust saying it is part of a project aimed at getting “children and communities with typically lower participation in the arts to participate in high quality digital literature events” with specific targeting of “groups including schools with high levels of Free School Meals, children with additional needs and children in care”.
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