A Greenwich Poem for Kids: The Non-Octagonal Room

A poem about stars, research and finding where a poem belongs.

Not every poem ends up where you first imagine it will.

When I was writing poems for possible inclusion in Space – Royal Observatory Greenwich Poetry Book, I spent a lot of time reading, researching and falling down wonderful historical rabbit holes. I wrote about the Greenwich Time Ball, distant stars, dying stars, Pluto and a rather famous room that turned out to be not quite as useful as it looked.

Two of those poems, Miss and The Time Ball and Before I Close My Curtains, were chosen for the final anthology. Others, including The Non-Octagonal Room, Dying, Dying Massive Star and Pluto’s Paranoia, were not.

That is one of the strange things about being a poet. You can work hard on a poem, love it, polish it, send it away and still not know whether it will be chosen. Sometimes a poem fits the shape of an anthology. Sometimes it does not. That does not mean the poem has failed. It may simply mean its path lies somewhere else.

The Non-Octagonal Room is a Greenwich poem for kids that I am still proud of, partly because it came from research. Like Miss and The Time Ball and my poem Oweynagat, it was written after digging into a real place, its history and the people connected to it.

The poem was inspired by the Octagon Room at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren for the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, it is a beautiful room with eight sides. But there was a problem. For Flamsteed’s astronomical work, especially observing stars as they crossed imaginary lines in the sky, the room was not perfectly aligned for what he needed to do.

I loved that detail.

A grand, carefully designed room, built for the stars, and yet the real work had to happen somewhere less glamorous. In the poem, that becomes the “lesser-famed, never-named, brick-red, garden shed”.

That is exactly the sort of detail poets look for. Not just the big fact, but the odd little human truth inside it.

For children, I hope this Greenwich poem for kids shows that history is not just dates and names. It is full of strange problems, clever people, beautiful mistakes and surprising discoveries. For poets, I hope it shows something else too: research can lead you towards poems you would never have found by waiting for feelings alone.

I used to think most of my poems came from emotion, memory or personal experience. Many still do. But poems like The Non-Octagonal Room, Miss and The Time Ball, Dying Dying Massive Star and Oweynagat taught me that curiosity can be just as powerful.

Sometimes you begin with a fact.

Then the fact opens a door.

Then behind that door, if you are lucky, there is a poem waiting.

Here is The Non-Octagonal Room.

The Non-Octagonal Room Imagine a room with eight sides designed back then by the great architect Christopher Wren designed just for you to make your astronomer dreams come true You one of the earliest 17th century star men John Flamsteed in a room built to feed your destiny to discover new stars from afar to help you explore and prove how to use longitude How did you say then to the great Christopher Wren as the King’s astronomical observator Your octagonal room isn’t quite fit for what it was designed for Though spectacular, no doubt it’s not quite working out

Because all of the meridians you need your telescope to find The height and time The stars way up high crossing imaginary lines to make a map of the sky are not aligned not at all with any of your eight, great designer walls And that in order to aid future sailors to navigate In order to define degrees of time In order for space to help us know our exact place You’re afraid, instead You’ll have to do most of your star gazing from the Royal Observatory’s lesser-famed never-named brick-red garden shed Mark Bird

The Octagon Room, Greenwich designed by Sir Christopher Wren.

Enjoyed this poem? Discover more poems for children about space, science, history, curiosity, imagination and the thrill of learning something new.

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