Heathrow turns to poetry to entertain soaraway Easter crowds

Michael Rosen and Danny Wallace among authors to write original work for children, to be broadcast around airport, alongside workshops and competitions

Passengers at Heathrow this Easter will be able to slip the surly bonds of Earth before they even board their flights thanks to an initiative offering travelling families new poetry by major names including Michael Rosen and Laura Dockrill.

Former children’s laureate Rosen, performance poet Dockrill and the bestselling authors Danny Wallace and MG Leonard have all written new poems for Heathrow’s newly installed “poetry points”. Overhead speakers will broadcast the children’s authors’ poems to passers-by, from Rosen’s imagining of a suitcase desperate to join in the holiday fun (“I may be a suitcase / but I want to be free / Iwant to go to the beach, / and swim in the sea”), to Leonard’s account of the various insects journeying through the sky alongside aeroplanes.