Poetry responding to Climate Change: Simon Armitage

I enjoyed hearing Poet Laureate Simon Armitage’s poem ‘Ark’ on BBC Radio 4 this week.  The poem was written to commemorate the launch of the UK’s new polar research ship, the ‘Sir David Attenborough’.

Here is a clip of Simon Armitage reading the poem:

and here is a link to the poem on the poet’s website.  It’s a brilliant example of a poem engaging with climate change and would be particularly good to take into the KS3 & KS4 classroom – that’s students aged 11 – 16 (or for older KS2 students – 10 and 11 year olds).  I agree with poet and teacher Michael Rosen’s comment on Twitter:

…a poem full of the depth of the crisis, the resonance of survival taken from the Noah story and anglo-Saxon alliteration… great for intertextual ‘conversation’ between bible and climate change!

 
There’s more information about the polar research ship by Jonathan Amos, BBC Science Correspondent, here.
 
The Noah story can be found in Genesis, Chapter 8.
 
Image of melting glaciers from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.