Record-breaking poetry

Primary children from a Hampstead school have made a new world record – they have written the longest poem ever recorded… and they are still going!

Four primary children from Southbank International School in Hampstead have written the world’s longest poem … and the words just keep on flowing!

Lola, Noah, Iria (aged 9) and Louise (aged 8) have already passed the required 3500 words and are still going, with the poem now longer than the length of the classroom. They are building the poem up gradually taking it in turns to write a line and contribute.

The poem is aptly titled ‘Everything Poem’, and is a fully rhyming nonsense poem.

To get things started, the children wrote down all the rhyming words they could think of – and the poem it has gone on from there, now covering more than 21 pages.

(from Left to Right) Noah, Louise, Lola and Iria

Inspired by the best

The inspiration behind this record-breaking attempt came from one of the best-loved children’s authors of all time: Alan Ahlberg. After enjoying a poem Alan had written which was 13 pages long, Iria asked what the longest poem in the world was. The class did some research to find the answer, but after looking at the Guinness World Records website they found that there is no such a record. It was then that the group decided to go ahead and write their own record-breaking poem.

The only guidance given to the children from their teacher was information about how to go about making an official record breaking attempt. The children then contacted Guinness World Records who gave them all the information they needed.

Tough to beat

The poem has already beaten the target of 3500 words set by Guinness World Records but the children are carrying on to ensure that it is not going to be easily beaten.

They aim to complete the poem before April in order to submit their effort for the official 2010 World Records.

Principal, Helen O’Donoghue, said: “The Primary Years Programme encourages students to take action from their learning and the students have illustrated this extremely well. It is great to see students taking responsibility for their learning and enjoying it as they go.”