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poet ● novelist ● arts collaborator ● teacher

For and With Young People

Philip Gross leading a children's workshop at Northcourt, Isle of Wight

Philip's work for and with young people is wide-ranging, including novels, prizewinning collections of poetry that cross age bands, schools opera libretti and workshops.

Find out more:

Young people's poetry

Young people's novels

Enter the DARK SKY PARK zone

Ask Philip a question about poetry or science, and read his answers.


The boat made of poems

sings and hums and talks and whispers to itself.
	It never sleeps.
It groans, it shudders to the rhythm of the waves.
	Its timbers creak
in the language of every port it has put into —
	the backchat, the patois,
the babble, the Babel, the smuggled rich lingo 	
	of each dockside bar.
But hush: don't tell the captain or the bosun
	or the loosely rhyming crew: 
		there's really nothing to it, poetry,
just air, hot air and paper, oh, and skill
	and love and hope, between them
		and the deep dark silent sea.

From Off Road To Everywhere (Salt, 2010)