A special poetry exchange between primary schools in Manchester and Odesa.

‘We should be friends forever’ is taken from a line from Mark Rudyi’s (Odesa) poem.

Manchester City of Literature and Odesa City of Literature in Ukraine are collaborating on a short poetry exchange project, engaging primary school children aged 9-11 to explore themes of friendship, language and connection via poetry.

Spearheaded by Multilingual City Poet Charlotte Shevchenko Knight, Year 5/6 students in Manchester (Manor Park Academy) explored a series of key questions and themes, including friendship, connection, and language. They responded to writing prompts in any poetic form they wished.

In parallel, the same writing responses occurred in Odesa with a similar aged cohort of children. The students’ work was then scanned digitally by teachers and translated by Ukrainian translator Marta Gosovska.

The final set of all the translated poems will be presented on specially printed postcards and displayed in a pop-up exhibition in a Manchester Library (location and date to be confirmed.)