You Can Help Contribute to the 800 Poems Project for Liverpool's 800th Birthday

[poem800]

just wondered if you would be interested in helping us collect 800 poems for Liverpool 8ooth Birthday if so please visit
http://www.poem800.com/

Thanks poem800

[ChrisGeorge]

Originally Posted by poem800

just wondered if you would be interested in helping us collect 800 poems for Liverpool 8ooth Birthday if so please visit
http://www.poem800.com/

Thanks poem800

Hello poem800

Is this connected to Liverpool Saga--800 lines of poetry to celebrate the eight centuries of the city sponsored by BBC Radio Merseyside--or is it completely separate? I suspect it is separate but please clarify. If it is separate, how do you justify what you are doing when there is this other effort going on as well?

Thanks

Chris

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi all

As noted above, the Liverpool 800 Poems site is looking for 800 poems to celebrate the city's 800th birthday. They are almost an eighth of the way there. I have had a number of my city-related poems accepted. Clare Kirwan and Roger Cliffe-Thompson are among the other name poets who have contributed so far.

I encourage all of you to put something together: a memory, a vignette, some Liverpool humour in poem form. For those of you who are reading this and have not been to Liverpool write about what the city means to you.

The Liverpool 800 site is at http://www.poem800.com/ -- go the poems page, picture of the Liver Building. The coloured squares have poems that have been accepted, the white squares are available for you to add a poem. Good luck.

Chris

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi All

This project now well on its way with one hundred poems so far accepted and posted. There is still time for you to write a poem and get it in. See details above and good luck.

Chris

[Jericho]

Reading some of the poems, my guess is that it's more of a fun thing than anything else.

Those primary school kids have certainly been busy

[ChrisGeorge]

Originally Posted by Jericho

Reading some of the poems, my guess is that it's more of a fun thing than anything else.

Those primary school kids have certainly been busy

Hi Jericho

Fun, yes, but also there are some serious poems on the site and some clever comments on Liverpool social customs etc.

I think it is a very good thing for the kids to get involved and get to know the city's history and tradition this way. Here's a clever limerick by three of the kids:

Ringo Starr

There once was a man called Ringo
Who really liked playing bingo
He was good at the drums
But he used his thumbs
And a pink feather from a flamingo

By Joe O'Brien, Alex Loy, Eve Williams, Sean Ho Age 7


And here's one of mine. As you see, if you read down the letters on the left hand side, it reads, "Happy Birthday, Liverpool." I also should here thank Mr. Gerard Fleming who took my wife Donna and I around the city's Beatles sites and which helped to give me ideas for some of the lines in the poem.

Liverpool Birthday Acrostic

Happy Birthday, Liverpool! 800 Years On!
Allerton and its Great Old Oak -- as Old?
Parliament Street and the Toxteth Riots
Picton Reading Room for the Books
Yates Wine Lodge for the Booze

Birkenhead and the ancient Monk's Ferry
Irish Guinness Boats bringing the Black Stuff
Runic Mysteries of the Calder Stones
Tuebrook House: a Yeoman's Cottage, 1615
Hayman's Green and the Casbah Club
Dingle and William Roscoe's "Nymph"
Abercrombie Square: a Georgian gem
Yosser and the Boys

Litherland Town Hall, where Beatlemania was born
Ince Blundell: origin of a Cavalier's Diary
Vyrnwy's Welsh Water providing the water we drink
Everton: the Blue Half and Dixie Dean's fame
Rupert, Prince, stormed the town in 1644
Princes Park and donkey Judy's grave
Otterspool and King John's Lower Lodge
Oglet by Liverpool John Lennon Airport
Liverpool, the Red Half, singing "You'll Never Walk Alone"


By Christopher T. George

[ChrisGeorge]

Originally Posted by ChrisGeorge

Hello poem800

Is this connected to Liverpool Saga--800 lines of poetry to celebrate the eight centuries of the city sponsored by BBC Radio Merseyside--or is it completely separate? I suspect it is separate but please clarify. If it is separate, how do you justify what you are doing when there is this other effort going on as well?

Thanks

Chris

In regard to my above query, Roger from the Poem800 Project has replied as follows:

1. In answer to the question about the 800 line poem. We are not in competition and no it's nothing to do with it.

Poem800 was dreamed up before theirs but nevertheless we have linked their site to ours from the beginning when our site was uploaded (it would be nice if they would carry a link to ours) and it has no relevance as theirs is one poem which allows poets to contribute four lines to an existing poem. It's a great idea but ours allows poets to put up a complete poem on their own theme.

2. Also there is no reason why poets can't enter both and finally surely this is REALLY the best thing that's happened for poetry in Liverpool since Adrian Henri in the 60's.

Cheers,

Roger

Also from the project I received the following information:

Hi all Poem 800 poets.

Brilliant!

We are now just over the TWO hundred mark and .... its all down to you. Thanks

Only 600 to go! Its hitting the Echo on Friday night (so they tell us) and the Daily's next week, apart from other groups now getting behind our effort.

Anyway its great news... 203 is fantastic never, ever dreamed we would get to this amount in so short a time... so if you can please keep spreading the word... and let's get going for the rest.

Bestest,

Billy and Roger

[Jericho]

Chris - where is your poem about spraypainting on public monuments? I thought it perfectly captured the self absorption of the culprit.

[ChrisGeorge]

Originally Posted by Jericho

Chris - where is your poem about spraypainting on public monuments? I thought it perfectly captured the self absorption of the culprit.

Thanks, Jericho. It's at http://www.poem800.com/liver.php?poem=17

Chris

Hi Chris

I have been reading your poems on that site.

Nice work mate, enjoyed them