Merseyside’s Maritime Poet Laureate

In 2003 Mersey Maritime joined Year Six (11 year old) pupils from Booker Avenue

Junior School in South Liverpool in a literacy project aimed at:

  • teaching children about job opportunities within the industry
  • demonstrating that the River Mersey forms a huge part of their everyday lives – like bringing them their clothing and food
  • highlighting that the River Mersey is home to hundreds of species of wildlife

Mersey Maritime produced a fact sheet to assist the children in producing poems.

The children spent “Maritime Poetry Week,” which was specially designed to fit with the National Curriculum, looking at different varieties of poetry including sonnets and Japanese haiku, based on the themes “in the river”, “on the river” and “by the river.” Children from the school were also treated to a maritime educational day-out courtesy of Mersey Ferries and Merseyside Maritime Museum.

The winner received a trophy, as well as the title “Maritime Laureate”, and the top 30 poems appeared in a specially produced Mersey Maritime poetry collection – “I Am The Liver Bird – Poems of the River” – given to all the participants.

The cost to Mersey Maritime was minimal, given that Leapfrog PR ran the event and Finch Ltd, a Liverpool based marketing and design consultancy, designed and printed the poetry collection free.

Mersey Maritime was fortunate not only in that Leapfrog routinely donates consultancy time to community projects, but also that they already had a good relationship with the school and a detailed knowledge of how to link into the curriculum.

This was a pilot project and not formally evaluated, but its potential is clear, it is suitable for any location, and could be scaled up as large as resources allow.

Contact: Hilary Berg/Jeanette Riley, Leapfrog PR, Tel: 0151 707 6988

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