At the Write About Time workshop the group composed a time capsule poem, with each person contributing a treasured thing or place that they would wish to pass on to future generations.
The style of this group poem was inspired by 'A Martian Sends a Postcard Home' by Craig Raine, in which an extra-terrestrial visitor describes familiar objects from an outsiders’ perspective, as if seen for the first time. Many of the people we have interviewed for INTERSECTION similarly talk about past and future generations as inhabiting a different world. The time capsule poem is below, along with a selection of image clues about the treasures people wished to include.
It is the awakening of a higher self.
It is a time capsule of Sheffield.
It causes tears to run from my eyes, a pain in my stomach, a gasp from my mouth.
It is a keyboard with a built in printer.
It is no bigger than the circle between my thumb and middle finger.
It fills with sky,
It fills with absence.
It is a gift to the people of the future about the power within.
It is an airport hut stranded in the desert, catapulting me into a strange new world.
It is a place we can make blue again.
It will revive the concept of slowness and surprise.
It is a deep pool of shimmering water, cold blue waves, lush green hills.
It is a procession of squirrels carrying sixpences and half crowns.
It is a soft warm lavender sock after a rainy walk.
It is fantastic electronic music and DJs.
It is a vessel holding food, a portal through which love is served.
It is written here, our connections, family, our language shared in comforting lines.
It is a gift, a glimpse of our lives.
It shows we valued water, the planet, justice, peace, the joy of singing in a beautiful place.
It is a blackened monument to childhood, charred and broken but still impressive.
It is unbroken tapestries of skin.
It is derelict walls, withered by rain and whispering ghosts.
It is a bottle of Henderson’s relish.
It dances between major and minor.
It is a click, then a discordant screech like an angle grinder, but there’s no spark.
It is traditional scratches, invisible dents, preserving knowledge with a used up pen.
It is rounded metal worn by hands from the Dawn of Molly.
