91Èȱ¬

:: The Off the Shelf festival continues until 3rd November

Andrew Motion's poem, 'What If?...' is one of three poems in the city which you might spot on the sides of buildings.

'The Liverpool Poet' Roger McGough has a poem on the glass of the Winter Garden, while verse by Jarvis Cocker adorns the side of student flats near London Road.

The letters of Andrew Motion's poem are so huge that even people arriving at Sheffield railway station are able to read it, and the poet says he feels honoured:

"I was genuinely very excited to be given this commission because it's so rare to see words made into public art in this kind of way - Sheffield is bucking the trend. I must say, it's a bit daunting standing under it but it does look magnificent and I couldn't be more pleased about it."

South Yorkshire talent

South Yorkshire has its fair share of literary talent from Rotherham steel worker-turned poet Ray Hearne, the 'Barnsley poet' Ian McMillan and author Barry Hines to name but a few.

But Andrew Motion is actually an Essex lad, so was it hard for him to write about a place he has no emotional ties to?

"I do have ties with the city - particularly with the universities - but actually in the poem I wanted to exploit the sense of not being resident here. Then other people arriving here for the first time - or who don't know the city very well - would find something in what I had to say."

Rotherham poet Ray Hearne

Speaking to Rony Robinson, the Rotherham poet Ray Hearne praised the idea of words on a building: "It's aÌýbrilliant idea - a tiny voice of a thing proclaiming itself among all the other adverts and everything else around it. People are curious - we're not used to seeing words which are not in advert lingo, or not with a picture."

But Ray thought, perhaps controversially, that What If?.. is not in fact a particularly good poem.

So that gave Rony the idea of getting listeners to write their own. Read on for the Radio Sheffield poem, and then scroll down to compare it to the poet laureate's offering.

Radio Sheffield listeners' poem

(With thanks to Ray Hearne, Howie Pressman, Christine in Kimberworth, Lynne in Doncaster, local writer Patsy Seddon, Skippy, Andrew the picture framer, Kev in Rotherham, Sheila, Steve, Sharon from Sheffield, Matt Black, Alex in Netherthorpe, staff at Holland Signs in Dronfield, Rony Robinson, Roy H, SML, Pauline, Steve, Doug, Dave Buck in Rotherham, Sheila in Old Whittington, and Carol.)

O travellers from somewhere else to here
Now the writing's on the wall
Lost souls stop and be refreshed

Maybe we wish to be where we belong
As hobnail boots wear the cobbled streets away
Come to see our city
See Yorkshire's star

O travellers from Rotherham to Chesterfield
What do you see? What do you fear? As you reminisce on yesteryear
Beware the twilight years where spectres from the past still roam
Your magnificent hills are the arms I rest in when my heart is heavy and the clouds swing by like angry dinosaurs.

Welcome to Sheffield - South Yorkshire's largest building site
Get thi sen on't free bus cos tha dunt usually get owt fo' nowt in dee dar land
No gourmet meals, just cash appeals - the beggars on the corner needing cash
And stinking subways bright with daubed obscenities.

Steel yourself for whatÌýyou'll find
From cooling towers to crooked spire, and look in wonder at the spire
and talk to friendly folk, take note
when fishing for those local notes - let our dialect grab you by the throat
Behold a steel city - now reborn
Sleep - oh let me sleep so I can visit you in my dreams.

What If..? by Andrew Motion

O travellers from somewhere else to here
Rising from Sheffield Station and Sheaf Square
To wander through the labyrinths of air,

Pause now, and let the sight of this sheer cliff
Become a priming-place which lifts you off
To speculate
What if..?
What if..?
What if..?

Cloud shadows drag their hands across the white;
Rain prints the sudden darkness of its weight;
Sun falls and leaves the bleaching evidence of light.

Your thoughts are like this too: as fixed as words
Set down to decorate a blank facade
And yet, as words are too, all soon transferred

To greet and understand what lies ahead -
The city where your dreamling is re-paid,
The lives which wait unseen as yet, unread.