The poem, What Manchester does today, the rest of the world does tomorrow, has been written by Sam Illingworth, poet and science communicator at Manchester Metropolitan University and host of our Experimental Words event at this year’s festival.
Sam will be presenting Experimental Words alongside scientific poet Dan Simpson at The Eagle Inn, Salford, on Thursday 26 October.
What Manchester does today, the rest of the world does tomorrow
This city is alive with music, magic and dance
Underpinned with an industrial heart
That beats with the vibrancy of scientific discovery.
From the transit of Venus to the first railway station,
Manchester has a place in the soul of our nation;
With Turing’s ‘baby’ computer and the first test-tube baby,
This is a city of can do and not maybe.
Continuing in this fine scientific tradition
Manchester Science Festival has as its mission
A desire to not just thrill and inform,
But help bring about wider social reform.
Exploring the rise of the robots
And giving us access to dreams
There’s something for children, and adults, and teens;
Come and climb through a spider’s web made out of tape
Discover how Ada helped computing take shape.
With experimental words, gaming, VR, and play
Manchester is tomorrow’s world, but today.