Teaching Up On The Downs

Poetry Ros Barber – Samphire Hoe

Activities

Samphire Hoe

Here, the Earth is inside out:

drilled from the belly of the English channel

and carted here in miserable truckloads;

tons and tons of it, bulldozed, and left for dead.

But beneath chalk marl’s unpromising

grey nudity, the tick of life recovers.

A gull preens a single seed out of a feather.

Spores alight from the long haul of a gale.

Things grow. Leaves sprout, and the first flowers

burst in the air like astonishment.

It’s a fierce soil they grow in, these pioneers,

but their roots fix Nitrogen into its teeth, and tame it.

Slowly, slowly, but faster than you would imagine,

The land heals like a bruise,

colouring differently season by season,

and dresses itself, under the glare of the weather.

Now, it is rich. Sea beet, samphire, kidney vetch,

and the early spider orchid, supposedly only found

in ancient fields. It’s all a lie. Here’s the proof

Nature, like Love, celebrates the new.

My love. My love, be what you are inside.

Pull your substance, rough as it is, from your dark heart

and spread it out under the sun.

Let people see. Let rain fall, and know: miracles come.

By Ros Barber

Activities:

Pre-visit

• Talk about the evolution of the White Cliffs. These links give brief summaries:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/article-1355790829532/

http://www.whitecliffscountryside.org.uk/index.php?id_sec=2&id_sub=2

• Look at how Samphire Hoe was created. This film tells the story.

http://www.samphirehoe.com/uk/videos/Samphire-Hoe/

·  or you can find information here

http://www.samphirehoe.com/uk/samphire-hoe/creation/

• Talk about establishing habitats, conditions, competition (science link).

http://www.samphirehoe.com/uk/biodiversity/index/

• Read poem and interrogate structure and vocabulary.

• Look at some graffiti art in preparation for writing parts of your poem.

During visit

• Write your own first stanza about your first impressions of the place. Does it feel like another world? How did you feel as came through the tunnel? You could make a link to how the site was created. Begin your stanza with ‘Here…’

• Collect descriptions of what you can see around you. Make one or more stanzas, beginning each line with the words ‘Here is…/Here are…’

• Collect scientific vocabulary for the wildlife on the site from the noticeboards or exhibitions. Make a stanza listing them, with the emphasis on the sound of the words (it can sound like a jumble of things).

• Collect descriptions of what you can hear. Make one or more stanzas, beginning each line with the words ‘Here is…/Here are…’

• Imagine you could make a new world from scratch. What would it have in it? Describe it for the final stanza of your poem, beginning ‘My world…’.

• Take photographs to illustrate your poem.

• Perform your poem in front of the backdrop of the sea. Film it or record an audio track.

• Write and illustrate lines from your poem in chalk on the concrete sea wall and photograph it.

Post-visit

• Edit and proofread your poem.

• Create a Powerpoint or other presentation from the photographs and poetry.

Cross-curricular links
• history (channel tunnel, local history of area)
• science/geography (habitats, fossils, plant identification, engineering of creating tunnel)
• ICT (film, presentation)
• art and design (graffiti design, illustration)