Poetry, prizes and citizenship
12 December 2008
Award winning poet, playwright, broadcaster and children's author Roger McGough took part in a Roscoe Lecture with a difference on Thursday 4 December.
Rather than delivering a lecture, McGough was interviewed by BBC Radio Merseyside's Roger Philips and the resulting 'conversation' held the audience enthralled as the pre-eminent poet reflected on his life and career to date.
McGough also presented a Good Citizenship Award to Sam Newton from Riverside College, Halton. Sam is a very worthy winner, as she started volunteering in July 2002 for the Canal Boat Project which supports children from deprived areas. She has also spent a week at the Warrington Peace Centre and travelled to Romania to help insulate two houses. In 2006/07 she helped teach peer education in primary and high schools on alcohol awareness, bullying, drugs and discrimination.
Picture: Professor David Alton, Chairman of the Foundation for Citizenship, Professor Michael Brown, LJMU Vice Chancellor, Sam Newton, Good Citizenship Award winner and Roger McGough
Prize-winning poetry
The Roger McGough Roscoe Lecture was sponsored by Telefonica O2 UK Limited. O2 has supported the University's Foundation for Citizenship for many years, sponsoring Good Citizenship Awards in a number of schools and colleges.
To highlight the work of the Foundation and raise awareness of good citizenship, O2 ran a staff poetry competition on the theme of connections or citizenship.
The lucky winner, Kate Michell, based in Preston Brook, had her poem read out by Roger McGough during the private dinner following his Roscoe lecture.
Cheryl Black of O2 explained that they were proud to be associated with the Roscoe Foundation for Citizenship and were delighted that their staff had responded so positively to the poetry competition, demonstrating their commitment to good citizenship.
Picture: The Vice Chancellor, Professor Brown joins Roger McGough in congratulating O2 winner, Kate Michell.
Dot to Dot by Kate Michell
Precious connections are formed,
Between families and friends,
Acquaintances and colleagues,
A shimmering masterplan of life,
Each person connected to the next,
Waves of supple, fluid joints,
Designed to bend not break,
Withstanding the turbulence of life,
Relationships formed with strict rigidity,
Constraining or ignorant of growth,
Are fragile so shatter when pressured,
Breaking the chain,
The whole world is linked,
Learning from each person and contact,
A rich well of knowledge to be shared,
Our lives influenced by a diffusion of all,
Our links to each other,
Create an ever-expanding web,
Each day growing in size and intricacy,
An intimate tapestry of our lives,
We belong to a pattern,
Take comfort from the puzzle we share,
There can be no strangers in this riddle of life,
We are all connected somewhere along the way.
click here to download an mp3 file of the lecture
