Aberdonians inspire new poem – Our Future Aberdeen
19 November 2020
A new poem inspired by Aberdonians has been revealed by Aberdeen City Libraries today (Thursday 19 November) as part of their Book Week Scotland celebrations.
Book Week Scotland is an annual celebration of books and reading that takes place across the country and is organised by the Scottish Book Trust – the national charity changing lives through reading and writing.
Book Week Scotland 2020 will take place from 16-22 November and is supported by the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) and Creative Scotland. This year’s theme is Future.
The poem titled ‘Our Future Aberdeen’ is the culmination of the Poem to Future Aberdeen project which ran during the Autumn and saw city residents of all ages share their hopes and dreams for Aberdeen in the years ahead. Using these community contributions as the inspiration for the poem, the library service worked with local poet Sheena Blackhall who was commissioned to create the final piece.
The poem will receive its first reading during Book Week Scotland on SHMU radio’s The Culture Club as well as being on display around the city and available to download and read by clicking on preview on the library services’ digital library, BorrowBox. The poem reads:
Our Future Aberdeen
What do our children think of Tomorrow?
Read & prepare for a shock!
The roads will be pink. The houses will move
All buildings can walk & talk.
Books will read to you. Plants will talk to you
And when you want to sleep
A Magic wind will blow you to bed, where rainbow clouds so steep
Will drop red rain on Aberdeen into water, green and deep
Other thoughts of Tomorrow?
All cars will be electric. All cars will go at the speed of light
Oh won’t it be ecstatic!
There’ll be parking space at Union Square. Aberdeen will be buzzing
There’ll be singing again at schools. There’ll be no more sanitizing
The Northern Lights will shine on us. More dolphins will swim in the sea
There’ll be less pollution and jobs for all. We’ll have far more trees. Yippee!
Our town will be helpful, happy, kind. We’ll fly as high as a bird
We’ll be peaceful, glorious, amazing, Doric, Gàidhlig and all tongues heard
There’ll be futuristic football, for all, Equality
With parks for dogs and wildlife spots fresh air by our beautiful sea
We’ve a great community culture as a tourist destination
No-one will live in poverty that’s our singular expectation
Two rivers sit at our city’s heart, the Don and the sparkling Dee
We’ll always play on the changing sands, by their soul mate, the North Sea
We’ll be green and clean in Aberdeen, welcome all nationalities
A football team of winners, and traditional tasty sweeties
Our Future won’t be all about size, about stature or great wealth
It’ll be about heart, wellbeing, about happiness and health
by Sheena Blackhall
With thanks to the people of Aberdeen for sharing their thoughts and helping inspire this poem.
Councillor Marie Boulton, Aberdeen City Council’s culture spokesperson, said: “The poem ‘Our Future Aberdeen’ is wonderfully descriptive, insightful and aspirational. I particularly like the lines ‘We’ve a great community culture as a tourist destination. No-one will live in poverty that’s our singular expectation.’
“Thanks to renowned local poet Sheena Blackhall and inspired suggestions from Aberdonians of all ages the poem has a real sense of optimism and that positivity will be welcome by all alike, particularly during these difficult times.”
This year, due to COVID-19 restrictions Book Week Scotland public events will not go ahead, however there are community-based and digital events to join. For more information visit: www.bookweekscotland.com