skip to primary navigation skip to content
 

Polar poetry

Polar poetry

Working with Kaddy Benyon, a poet based in the Scott Polar Research Institute, at an event on 31 October 2012 during the Festival of Ideas, children were encouraged to produce poems on polar themes. We hope you enjoy the amazing results as much as we do! You can also read Kaddy's poems written on the day.

The penguin

Smart and colourful,poetry2

God made you so that there would be colour among the ice.

Tell me where you go and what you do

Fluffy and light with your bowtie, you make me happy.

Adam Blackburn age 6


The polar bear

Soft, smooth and snuggly, yet fierce, huge and wild

God created you so there would be something different in the world

When I look at you I am worried, frightened and afraid

But you remind me of my Nana and Grandad in the snow and ice and then I think

of you as my best friend.

Kathryn Blackburn age 8


The seal

A giggly caveman with a smooth, wobbly and firm bellypoetry3

I wonder what it could be

If he spoke to me I'm sure he'd ask

What's for tea?

Like a full-bellied caveman he wobbles across the ice

The person who made him must be really nice

They got him just right

Sophie Everitt age 10


The polar bear

I am a polar bear

I'm very cold and smoothpoetry4

I dive into the water like an Eskimo

I wish I had more food

I am not strong and I am hungry

I feel like soft cabbage

I want to be warmer

Henry Everitt age 6


Slide the Penguin

Your penguin suit looks like my Daddy going to work,

Black and white, soft and cuddly.poetry4b

Sliding from a mummy egg.

Come and play with me

And make me smile.

Zara Kipping age 5


Penguin

Penguin waddling across the ice

Extremely cute and furry

Never stand between me and my child

Gliding across the ice like a snowflake.

Under the water

I glide and swim.

Nearly finished my day, let's go back to sleep.

Olivia Kipping age 7


Little Seal

She looked frozen in place with the cold winds blowing around her,

flecked in icy snow.

That was how I met the Little Seal.

She was made by an Inuit, crafted from stone, ready to catch her fish.

She was telling me to "back off", I could tell from the look in her eyes.

I reached out to touch her.

She felt smooth, sleek and shiny as her tail slips through my fingers into the deep depths of the icy Northern Waters.

Ally White age 7

The hungry Polar Bear

The hungry Polar Bear

Pads along the ice

Imagining all the fishpoetry5

Today he will entice

He had pricked ears,

A swinging tail

He's off to fish,

He never fails

This Polar Beauty,

This furry beast

Is off back home,

Heading to the east

Nicola White age 9

The Telescope

You are so clever, you fold up small.poetry6

You are smooth and leathery,

I want to look through you.

You remind me of the arctic and space

Please can you tell me about everything you've seen.

James Goodricke


The following poems were submitted via our Suggetions Box - thank you to everyone who contributed.

The Fur Hat

In the Antarctic I'm very cold

but with my hat, my head

is warm. I feel soft, warm fur

against my head, so if the windpoetry7

comes I won't be dead.

But I am not only warm up high,

the rest of my body is covered

in bearskin, safe and dry.

Anonymous


Arctic Prayer

May we call upon the spirits

Of the Arctic –

To help us to make

Our lives complicated.

Anonymous


Star

My huskie dog named Star

explores the South Pole

with me, jumping around

and playing with the sealspoetry8

and penguins. The snow

is cold and the sun bright,

but we are never out of each

other's sight, for friends

we are in this cold, beautiful land.

Scarlett


Old Snowsuit

The thick fur coat,

as soft as a bear.

The comfy, cuddly helmet

so nice to wear.

The great goggles

thick and tight.

The heavy-huge coat

so big and bright.

The cosy, fine hat

as warm as an oven.

The tall, fluffy boots,

high as heaven.

Eva age 9