Young History Poets Needed

South Australia's History Festival
A young girl looking into a transparent museum case containing a microscope.

Young poets: get ready to takeover!

Throughout May 2020, South Australian students in years 4 to 11 are invited to participate in the History Trust’s first ever online poetry challenge.

Our Poetry Takeover Challenge was originally meant to be a new young people’s component to South Australia’s History Festival. But even though the festival won’t be going ahead, the Poetry Takeover will be!

During May 2020, we invite young people to take inspiration from the collections that the History Trust and other museums and galleries hold on behalf of South Australia. We encourage them to engage with objects, think creatively, connect those thoughts to the theme ‘change’ and then develop a poem of any kind.

  • What does local history mean to you?
  • Why are objects important and why should we care?
  • Why would a museum have that particular object on display
  • What’s the story?

The Poetry Takeover Challenge is open to all students in years 4 to 11 across South Australia. Parents, carers and/or teachers can provide support – resources are available on our website. The poems will be inspired by museum objects discovered by exploring collections online.

Participants can create poems in any form: haiku, stanza, limerick, sonnet, slam –
whatever form is most interesting to them. Poems can be submitted in writing, or as an audio or video file, along with a picture of the museum object of inspiration.

The History Trust will share the poems on our Poetry Gallery and on the Poetry Takeover Facebook page.

Be sure to encourage the young people in your life to get creative and get involved in the challenge!

More information: https://poetrytakeover.com.au/the-challenge/