To celebrate the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference my latest poem immortalises the event.
Now I am off out litter picking in the countryside.
This is the real story of the saviour and its glory,
a material that simply is fantastic.
You can melt it. You can bend it. You can freeze it. You can blend it.
You can break it. You can mend it. #plastic
When used in business or in leisure it can work to any measure,
to be strong, yet flexible, and so elastic.
Replacing stone and wood and glass throughout the days and nights that pass,
to now be in another class. #plastic
It isn’t hard to understand it must be made to meet demand,
although the scientific testing may prove drastic.
But to confront the hot and cold, along the way from young to old,
until success – it fits the mould. #plastic
It’s still so popular today across the world in every way,
and people left and right remain enthusiastic.
So the material with grow yet it will surely come and go.
It’s here for now – let it be so. #plastic
It’s constant march around the globe; smartphones, cosmetics and wardrobe,
including to our private lives has been bombastic.
A colonic irrigation may cause a heart palpation,
but that’s too much information. #plastic
By confusing through suggestion means we never stop to question,
industries out of control are so gymnastic.
While corrupting to sustain will bring short term financial gain,
long term it yields the fruits of pain. #plastic
From its conception to creation without any deviation,
we know now that we were too encomiastic.
For the oil that we are drilling we’re aware will keep on killing,
off a future once fulfilling. #plastic
You see, the fossil fuel must go for it will surely stop the show,
although we worship it like the ecclesiastic.
As David Attenborough warns and Greta Thunberg points and scorns,
we must take the bull by the horns. #plastic
In Scotland I attended Dunfermline High School from 2010 to 2016 and Edinburgh Napier University from 2016 to 2020, emerging with two Advanced Higher and five Higher qualifications from the former and graduating with an undergraduate bachelor of arts honours degree in journalism from the latter. After two years away from further education due to the coronavirus pandemic, I'm going to be studying the MFA Photography course at York St John University in England from 2022 to 2024. I've achieved The Duke of Edinburgh’s (Bronze) Award and received grade five level certification for electronic keyboard from Trinity College London. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, writing, watching television series, listening to music and going to the cinema as well as catching up with friends, travelling by railway and hostelling overnight and overindulging in food and drinks in a pub or restaurant then having to go to the gym to burn it all off again.
By studying journalism and photography, my aim of practicing photojournalism professionally will hopefully be once step closer. Both are partial artforms requiring the rest of the work to be undertaken by the audience, the specialism of photojournalism, however, providing each of its two parts with greater context. Exploring photographic techniques (aerial, timelapse, editing) through a variety of journalistic styles (features, poetry, songwriting) will allow me to develop my portfolio, hone my camera skillset and narrow my focus further in anticipation of working life. Without a global pandemic to deal with this time. Fingers crossed.
