2009 marks the 7th year of ‘Can I Have a Word?’ the Barbican’s poetry project designed to inspire children to write, improve literacy standards and encourage creativity.
This year’s programme is made up of 2 projects for 480 Year 5 (aged 9-10) children from local ‘Adopt the Barbican’ schools, and a third large scale interactive event in the summer of 2010 celebrating the work created throughout the year.
Radical Rhymes is the first project of this year’s ‘Can I Have a Word?’ and so is the first time these pupils will have visited the Barbican to hear and write poetry.
The challenge is to focus on using the Gallery exhibition, Radical Nature; Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969-2009, as a starting point for poems.