This week’s poetry news round up looks at a poetry world record attempt that will be taking place on National Poetry Day and the plans for a museum in Millom.
Poets World Record Attempt
The children’s poet and author Laura Mucha will be making an attempt at the Guinness World Record title for the largest poetry lesson on National Poetry Day. There are already over 200,000 children from 1,200 schools signed up for the event, which will take place at 10am on 3rd October will take the form of a lesson. It will bring together students from all over the UK and beyond, and the idea is that together they will write one collective poem. The poem will be on the theme of counting, the theme of this years National Poetry Day. Once complete, the poem is scheduled to be displayed on billboards all over the country.
The initiative is being supported by funding from the Arts Council Lottery and also the Centre for Literary in Primary Education together with a number of other organisations. The attempt was initially aimed at children in the UK. However, there have also been schools signing up from other countries including the Philippines, Nigeria and Spain.
Mucha believes that this is a much needed way to celebrate literacy, with the latest statistics published by the government suggesting that as many as 27% of children are not able to read well enough by the time they finish year 6 of primary school and 29% can’t write well enough. At the same time, research from the National Literacy Trust shows that over 50% of children are engaging with poetry actively in some way.
This mass participant event was planned to bring children together and give them something to be proud of, and attempting a Guiness World Record at the same time just felt like the right thing to do for the sponsors.
Ideas have been submitted by the schools that are taking part and Mucha is turning these into a draft poem. This will be edited by everyone during the “lesson” with people being asked to vote on what goes into the poem and what doesn’t so that everyone has a say. The lesson is aimed at students from years 3-7 (aged 7-12) and each school needs 25 students taking part in order to participate.
Plans Submitted to Create Museum for Poet
The poet Norman Nicholson lived in the Cumbrian town of Millom for most of his life, and now plans have been submitted to turn the home where he lived into a museum.
When people think of poets and the Lake District their mind immediately turn to the poet William Wordsworth. Yet in his own way Nicholson is another important poet associated with the area.
The plans would see the property housing a café, museum and outreach centre. The Norman Nicholson CIC believe that if the plans go through the people of Millom will feel that justice has been done with a memorial to the poet in his home town.
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