Twinned with Mars - Roger McGough

Twinned with Mars

When they closed the foundries
and the mills
You could have taken
to the hills
But you stayed

Might have given up the ghost
but instead
You took a deep breath
forged ahead
Bright as a blade

* * *

I like this place
my son a student here

City of space
open skies and stars Sheffield

Twinned with Mars

For the past 11 years the Off the Shelf Festival of Writing and Reading, working with Public Art Consultant Paul Swales, has commissioned writers to create text for pieces of public art. This innovative ongoing project is called Text and the City. A variety of projects have been realised within this project and Sheffield now has a large number of public poems mounted onto buildings across Sheffield.

Roger McGough is an English poet, performance poet, broadcaster, children’s author and playwright. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Poetry Please’, as well as performing his own poetry. McGough was one of the leading members of the Liverpool Poets, a group of young poets influenced by beat poetry and the popular music and culture of 1960s.