What Manchester does today, the rest of the world does tomorrow

This city is alive with music, magic and dance

Underpinned with an industrial heart

That beats with the vibrancy of scientific discovery.

From the transit of Venus to the first railway station,

Manchester has a place in the soul of our nation;

With Turing’s ‘baby’ computer and the first test-tube baby,

This is a city of can do and not maybe.

Continuing in this fine scientific tradition

Manchester Science Festival has as its mission

A desire to not just thrill and inform,

But help bring about wider social reform.

Exploring the rise of the robots

And giving us access to dreams

There’s something for children, and adults, and teens;

Come and climb through a spider’s web made out of tape,

Discover how Ada helped computing take shape.

With experimental words, gaming, VR, and play

Manchester is tomorrow’s world, but today.

This is a poem to celebrate the upcoming Manchester Science Festival, which takes place in the city from Thursday 19^th to Sunday 29^th October 2017, and which features hundreds of different activities and events for audiences of all ages. Now in its 11^th year, the Manchester Science Festival is produced by the Museum of Science and Industry, and it is the North of England’s premier cultural celebration of all things related to science and innovation.

You can watch a performance of this poem, recorded in a warehouse at the Museum of Science and Industry here.