Charlie Toogood, Vismaya Kharkar, Rose McKerrel

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.104.40

We are delighted to announce that Charlie Toogood, Vismaya Kharkar and Rose McKerell are the winners of our recent poetry competition ‘Ode to Physiology: Animal Olympics!’

We received over 100 entries to the competition which challenged participants to explore physiology through the medium of poetry. With some artistic licence entrants discussed the biological basis of elite performance using rhythm and rhyme. While the poems haven’t been checked for accuracy, we are delighted so many people engaged with the competition and expressed an interest in the science of life. A big thank you to everyone who took part!

Our expert judges Kelly Swain, poet in residence at Oxford University Museum, and Sian Hickson, previously an English teacher and now Director of Eureka Edinburgh, whittled down the entries to just one winner from the under 10s, 11-18s and the over 18s categories.

Under 10s

Big and blue – can you guess who?
Charlie Toogood

The cheetah would never have met this creature;
A massive blowhole is its best feature.
This is the nostril of the great beast,
Who usually adores a krill feast.
Every day it eats 8000 pounds,
If I ate that much, I would be round!
The milk tastes like liver and chalk, people say, But the babies still drink 50 gallons a day! 150 tons is its weight, It’s the biggest animal, isn’t that great?
With a life span 110 years long,
It’s the BLUE WHALE!
Did you guess right or wrong?

11 – 18s

Ode to the Hummingbird
Vismaya Kharkar

Just lighter than a copper pence,
With ropy muscle and wings of gold he floats, His beak is sharp and needle-thin,
Soft feathers thinner than waves
make up his coat.
From flower to flower he hovers and glides Sucking sweet nectar from each in turn
For whenever he stops, from life he slides Falling into a torpor
Deep and slow.
His heart flutters, powerful.
Nearly twenty beats a second,
but at what cost?
He is founded upon excellence,
and without it, he will sleep.
A modern aurora – tiny, gold, and shining
To awaken at the touch of nectar or a new day

Over 18s

Ode to Physiology: Who am I?
Rose McKerrel

To give you a clue to my chosen athlete
Here are some features which make it elite Its heart is amazing in strength, size and rate When running flat out –
pulse can increase times eight!
The lungs can expand to fill most of the chest, Oxygenating blood is what they do best, When running the guts move forward and back. Like a piston they help fill those little air sacs…The limb bones are reduced to run on one toe And the lack of a collarbone
lets the front leg just flow
The muscles are huge at the top they must go When the fibres contract –
some are fast , some are slow
The ligaments stretch to take all the strain Then act like a catapult – forward again Narrow in front with an elegant head
The air rushes past – for speed they are bred But what is most clever is it isn’t just fast This animal has stamina- it really can last
It can win at eight furlongs
or stay for the course.
Because as you’ve guessed –
my favourite’s the horse!
Adapted for speed. Adapted to stay.
The horse is my winner every day
And there’s one other feature of which science hasn’t told
The horse’s second heart –
the one made of gold!