Below this bio are six quirky accounts from my life. (I hope they’ll make you smile.)
Celia Berrell
Born in England, Celia’s literary icons include Edward Lear, A A Milne, and Isaac Asimov. Celia pursued a career in teaching maths and science for four years before travelling to Australia. She has regarded her life in Australia as a working holiday ever since. She found her voice for writing poems about science in 2008 and launched this website in 2009.
CSIRO’s children’s science magazine Double Helix publishes one of Celia’s poems in each issue. Before Double Helix began, Celia’s poems often featured in their Scientriffic magazine (2010 to 2015). You’ll find 200 of them on Australian Children’s Poetry (2017 – ). Her own collections of poetry, The Science Rhymes Book (2018) and Christmastime Rhymes (2024) are published with Jabiru Publishing.
A number of her Science Rhymes are published in school textbooks. They include Springing to Action in India’s Next English 8 by Next Education (2017); Peace by Piece in Malaysia’s English Form 1 by Penerbitan Pelangi (2016); Mother Of Invention in Canada’s Nelson English 10 (2013); Town And Country Air in Better English (6th Class) by Educate.ie (2013). The Beauty Of It All was first published in Australia’s MacMillan English 7 (2011). Battle of the Bulge was used in a science presentation on gravity by the Australian Science and Mathematics School at Flinders University SA.
Seven Reasons Why Poetry is Pals with Science was published in Italy’s Junior Poetry Magazine in 2024. Earlier articles were published in Get Ahead Kids & the Toastmaster magazine, plus blogs including Crastina and All Ages of Geek.
Peace by Piece is published in DK’s anthology A World Full of Poems (2020) and two insect poems are in The Bee is Not Afraid of Me by The Emma Press (2021). Earlier anthologies included the Tropical Writers Raining On The Sun (2008), Cracks in the Canopy (2010), Category 5 (2011) and Lost In Mangroves (2013). Replanting Neurons came third in the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine’s stem-cell awareness poetry contest in 2010.
Under the guidance of Associate Professor Hilary Whitehouse, Graduate Research Education, JCU, a grant from the Regional Arts Development Fund supported James Cook University Science Educator Dr Clifford Jackson in assessing over 100 Science Rhymes for their scientific accuracy and educational value.
Celia has created over 80 poems to accompany artworks by Sharon Davson. Sharon’s paintings are showcased throughout this website. Click the images on the Environmental Poetry page to view them in full splendour.
Sixteen poems featured in the memoir 2000 Feral Pigs – my part in their downfall by Dr Peter “Piggy” Heise-Pavlov, released in October 2009.
Celia is an award-winning speaker. The Best Of Both Worlds won the inaugural I Love Cairns speech contest in August 2009 and A Golden Opportunity in 2010. She delivered poetry presentations at various Cairns schools including Trinity Anglican School, Trinity Bay High School and Trinity Beach State School. Collaborating with Whitfield State School Teacher Librarian Annette Ryan, after attending the school’s Science On The Oval (SOTO) project, Celia gave lunchtime science poetry workshops and hosted an annual student poetry recital for Science Week there.
A selection of science poems generated through these presentations, along with annual calls for poems are published as Your Science Poems. This project is supported by the National Science Week platform. In 2024 Celia delivered a presentation about writing science poems using AI via Virtual Excursions Australia and DART Learning to students in WA, NSW, VIC & QLD.
Since moving to the Fraser Coast, Celia continues to be a member of Cairns Speakers Toastmasters and the Far North Queensland chapter of SCBWI. She is a past member of Tropical Writers and has loved attending every Cairns Tropical Writers Festival to date. As a member of Queensland Writers Centre, she is currently a Writing Fridays Ambassador for Hervey Bay.
HOW SCIENCE RHYMES CONNECTS WITH OTHER PARTS OF MY LIFE
1 AMBER ALE (Dr Raul Caro & The Fossil Fuels Brewing Company)
My mother knelt before me, holding my hands. We were in the kitchen, getting ready to leave for my first day at school. “I want you to promise you won’t tell anyone that your father brews his own beer”.
Parents can be full of surprises, especially when you are only four-and-a-half! Slightly bewildered, I promised without question.
Dad and I had recently collected ears of barley from the edge of the field behind our garden after the combined harvester had been through. The resulting smell of malted barley, hops and yeast lingering in the kitchen was quite exciting. In hindsight, I suspect my mother didn’t approve of Dad’s new hobby.
Fifty years later, the amazing funnel of fascination called the internet, time-travelled me back to those beery smells and being with my father. I’d been searching for an interesting topic for a poem on Marvellous Microorganisms (part of the Primary Connections science syllabus for Australian schools). Suddenly, I hit gold (or rather amber) with a story reminiscent of Michael Crighton’s Jurassic Park. It was midnight when I started on the poem Sleeping Beauties about this 45-million-year-old fungus coming back to life and being used to brew beer! By the time I’d finished my limerick-styled masterpiece, it was gone 2am. In a state of euphoric exuberance, I couldn’t wait to share my amazing creation. One of the scientists involved in this discovery was Dr Raul Caro. His email address at the California State Polytechnic University was listed, so I gushed congratulations and profuse thanks for his scientific work and sent the poem. Sleepily satisfied, I went to bed reminiscing about my Dad.
I didn’t hear back from Dr Caro. Later, when I checked the email had actually been sent, I discovered I’d closed with “Love, Celia”. Oops.
Write/Recite Tip #1: REST AND FORGET. Don’t submit a piece as soon as it’s finished when you’re on a high in the middle of the night.
(Sleeping Beauties is in The Science Rhymes Book and reproduced at the bottom of this page)
2 FLEETING FAME (California Institute for Regenerative Medicine & USA Today)
Standing on a milk crate next to older student Denise at Scholes Primary School, a photographer from the Yorkshire Post snapped away while encouraging us to smile. I’d won a writing competition!
My story was about the nursery rhyme character Mary and her little lamb going to school using a zebra crossing. I’m six and this surprise win made me feel extra tall and happy! I’ve entered quite a few writing competitions since then. No poem of mine has come first.
My best effort was to place THIRD with a poem about Stem Cells. Embryonic stem cell research aims to find cures for a host of chronic illnesses. But it’s a political and ethical minefield, especially in the USA. However, the recently formed California Institute for Regenerative Medicine put out a call for poems on this subject. I still treasure my 2010 award of a framed photograph with the third placed Replanting Neurons poem printed on the back.
The winning poems were published in USA Today. Over two million Americans may well have read them. But there was a backlash about poems placed first and second. USA Today removed the original article and CIRM put out an apology. A thumbnail version of the amended winners still survives on USA Today.
Seeing our own creations acknowledged and published elicits amazing feelings of joy, reward and achievement. Inviting students to write poems about science is at the heart of the Science Rhymes website, inspired by my own positive experience when I was six.
Write/Recite Tip #2: GIVE IT A GO. Try submitting to free writing contests (as not winning doesn’t sting as much). The annual Science Rhymes call for poems about science has no charge!
(Here I am with the framed photo of human brain neurons received from CIRM. I’ve reproduced Replanting Neurons at the bottom of this page)
3 PIG PEOPLE (2000 Feral Pigs my part in their downfall & Porkopolis)
My favourite school subject was biology, even though it included the rather disturbing activity of dissecting animals. My father’s fully-fenced vegetable garden deterred rabbits, but moles and mice still got in. If he caught and killed one, he’d give it to me to practice dissections.
Peering through the kitchen window, my mother despaired. Outside I’d carefully slice then pin down various layers of some creature’s skin and muscle. I’d poke their innards; draw sketches and feel sorry for them. It was curiously creepy but fascinatingly informative. If aliens invade Earth, I’m sure they’ll do the same to us!
In 2004 I assisted with a real scientific dissection in the Daintree Rainforest. Dr Peter “Piggy” Heise-Pavlov had trapped a feral pig opposite Coconut Beach Rainforest Lodge where I worked.
In 2008 I wrote Autopsy about the incident, which I delivered at an Open Mic Poetry Recital. Someone in the audience choked on their drink. Later, I received a reprimand which reminded me of a “Howler” from the Harry Potter stories. It began, “You are a disgrace …”. I was defiling a beautiful art form with my gruesome descriptions.
I immediately hated that lady. But I later realised squeamish people would have been caught off-guard.
So, I added an epigram: “A feral pig-life’s sentence ends full stop. A bullet aimed head-on”.
After emailing this masterpiece to Piggy, he suggested I write more poems for his memoir. In 2009, he gave me a box of 2000 Feral Pigs my part in their downfall. My first publication as a science poet!
After Piggy’s death (2017), I received an email from USA. Daniel Schultz wanted a copy of Piggy’s book, so I sent one. Mentions of Piggy, plus six of my poems now feature on Porkopolis – a website on the arts, literature, philosophy and other considerations of the pig.
At the 2018 Cairns Tropical Writers Festival, I paid respect to Peter Heise-Pavlov and his book before reciting Autopsy. It felt much better that way.
Write/Recite Tip #3: Giving some context to a poem helps prepare the audience, particularly if things are going to get graphic.
(Someone snapped me (below) introducing Piggy’s book before reciting Autopsy on-stage at CTWF 2018. The poem is still on the Porkopolis website and reproduced at the bottom of this page.)
4 TEARS & STINKY FEET (Trinity Anglican School, National Science Week 2014)
My sister agrees. Mum made the best cheese on toast. Whereas Dad “jazzed it up”, making Welsh Rarebit topped with sickly powdered Parmesan. The house permeated stinky feet. Refusing to eat it wasn’t an option. No wonder we grew up collecting food phobias!
Celebrating Science Week with poetry at the beginning of Assembly, I accidentally caused a young child to cry.
I’d invited students to vote on which poem I was to recite.
“Who wants a poem about why stars twinkle?”, I asked. Some girls raised their hands. “Who’d prefer a poem about stinky feet?” Heaps more boys raised their hands. I declared Cheesy Feet the winner and began reciting.
During the first verse, a girl whimpered, then begun to wail. A teacher took her hand, leading her from the hall. Finishing the poem, I sat on stage in full view feeling awkward.
When students were finally dismissed, rather than depart to classrooms as instructed, a gang of older boys marched to the front. Were they angry at me? Gathered by the edge of the stage, their spokesperson demanded, “Was that true, what you said about stinky feet?”. “Yes”, I replied. “OK, good” was his pragmatic response. The boys all nodded before hastening to their classrooms.
Had I just connected with a new frontier of Science Rhymes appreciators? Had Cheesy Feet become a literary weapon of villainous information for upper-primary boys? I may have lost a starry young fan at the front, but felt I’d made a breakthrough elsewhere. Perhaps I’d impressed after all.
When CSIRO’s Scientriffic magazine published Cheesy Feet, it shared page 3 with an article on “belly-button cheese” by Zohra Aly. I thought this weird cheese-making experiment, using various human body microbes, was perfect mad-science material for primary schoolers – and me!
However, when I read it out to my mother, she was so revolted, she made me promise never to mention it again. Imagine being a child with that kind of word-power over a squeamish parent. Would you be compelled to try it out?
Write/Recite Tip #4: I shouldn’t have ignored the girls. Audience participation requires acknowledgement.
(Cheesy Feet is reproduced at the bottom of this page and was first published in CSIRO’s Scientriffic magazine.)
5 CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS (Writing a Christmas Poem & Making a Video)
Growing up, we ate plenty of home-grown vegetables. A roast chicken would last three days. But with only four of us, we’d still have a traditional roast turkey for Christmas. The downside was eating turkey into following year!
In 2012, before office Christmas parties began, the Council organised a CREATIVE CRAWL using the Cairns Party Bus. Ticket holders toured various art galleries. Paintings were viewed and wine was drunk. Three Tropical Writers poets commandeered the bus PA system and recited poetry between each stop. I handed out my Science Rhymes business cards too. And that’s how I met videographer, Suzie Cray.
She rang on Boxing Day. Would I like to do a video about writing Science Rhymes? I said “Yes”, even though I was terrified. I’d been practicing being brave by attending Toastmasters meetings. The video A Day In The Life Of A Proud Published Poet would never have happened otherwise.
Still in festive swing, I chose to research and write about The Turkey of Christmas Past. Suzie Cray was clever and kind to work with. She interviewed me, then took footage while I researched the feathered dinosaur Yutyrannus huali. (I then pretended to go to bed to “sleep on it”.) Next morning she returned, filming me walking and thinking. I spent that day creating the poem, arriving at her house mid-afternoon ready to recite the finished product.
Inspired by a Scientriffic article called Fuzzysaurus by Lucy Simmonds, I shared this poem with all my family and friends the next Christmas. I lost a talented friend over this poem. As a vegan and compassionate animal activist, she later explained the poem upset her too much.
But from my perspective, our recent understanding that birds are descended from therapod dinosaurs, and that some dinosaurs were colourful and feathery was magnificent news. You’ll find it in my book Christmastime Rhymes.
Write/Recite Tip #5: If variety is the spice of life, we can’t mix them all together and expect the result to taste good for everyone.
(The Turkey of Christmas Past is published in Christmastime Rhymes and reproduced at the bottom of this page.)
6 BEFORE I FORGET (Geographic Dyslexia & Magic Memories)
I’ve a lousy sense of direction and blame it on “geographic dyslexia”. When offered directions to turn left here or right there, they merge then dissipate like smoke in my mind. Dreams of being lost often include the realisation that home is an unknown destination. I once got so lost in Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, I ended up in tears, pleading with a security guard to escort me off the premises. So, when my husband’s step-mother died of Alzheimer’s disease, my sympathies sent me on a poetic deep-dive of contemplation.
Spoken in one Strange Word at the 2013 Cairns Festival was hosted by Eleanor Jackson. International and local poets showcased their recent masterpieces.
I like to speak from the heart while making eye contact with the audience. So, memorising poems for recital is important to me. Science Rhymes are easy. But this free-verse piece wasn’t. I only delivered the first three lines before the rest sunk into oblivion. Unfazed, I smiled confidently and retrieved a printed version from my back pocket. But the stage lighting was dim, and I didn’t have my reading glasses!
Clutching the paper at arm’s length, frowning and gawping, I continued in fits and starts as single words came into focus and prompted the murky trenches of my mind to recollect another few lines of radiance. This repeatedly happened through pained expressions and strained thought. My moment of fame was a terrible flop. Plus, people were laughing at me!
The title of that poem was Fearing Forgetfulness. Instead of imparting the grief and fear I thought my words expressed, the audience simply interpreted it as a humorous performance piece.
Fearing Forgetfulness was later published in a short-lived literary journal on grief called Deep Water. Funny or sad? Sometimes they’re just different views of the same thing.
Write/Recite Tip #6: For those living into dotage, memories may evaporate. If you’re a writer, put some of your best ones into print. You could even join Toastmasters and relay them to an appreciative audience. Either way, giving them an airing can be good for the soul. We might even thank ourselves later for saving them from extinction.
Thanks for walking down memory-lane with me! The six poems come next:
1 Sleeping Beauties by Celia Berrell
(survivors from the Eocene)Forty-five million years ago
a weevil got stuck in a tree-sap flow.
That resin soon dried with the weevil inside
preserving the insect that died.A long-extinct form of fungal yeast
had set up its home on that weevil beast.
The weevil’s death caused the yeast to form spores
where dormant they stayed safely stored.A scientist opened this resin tomb
to study the weevil which met its doom.
He noticed the yeast so he gave them a feast.
Now were they alive or deceased?The sugary soup that he fed to those spores
soon bubbled and frothed their fermenting cause.
He was really surprised to find them alive.
After millions of years they’d survived.This remarkable ancient yeast now lurks
in frothy vats at a brewer’s works.
Its amber-rich cheer is held very dear
by scientists who like drinking beer.
2 Replanting Neurons by Celia Berrell
The beauty of movement.
Some tendrils of hope
are glimpsed in a garden
through one microscope.The flowers of life
and the fruit of our soul
requires every stem to be
sturdy and whole.We graft, weed and nurture
our gardens with pride.
What grows and what goes
is for us to decide.Where pathways are broken
a wheelchair can’t reach.
But stem cell researchers
are mending that breach.
3 Autopsy by Celia Berrell
A feral pig-life’s sentence ends
full stop. A bullet aimed head-on.A scientist investigates
environmental impacts by
the skilled and careful study
of the animals that die.A feral pig. No living way
to tell its tale of health and strife
reveals so much to one who takes
the time to take its life.Unwrapped upon a shady bed
a make-shift platform interview
with knives and scales and bloodied notes
among the grassy dew.The blank-eyed stare; the gaping mouth
confirm a stunned and quick release
from all life’s complications, which
have left the beast at peace.The colouring; the skin and teeth
imply its age and more besides
when scrutinised and classified
by one with expert eyes.The sweeping sharpness of a blade
has splayed away the surface skin
exposing organs glistening
for one to search within.The parasites parade and squirm
off-guard; still vibrant in their home
of lung and liver; kidney, heart
now find a need to roam.The stomach with its vomit stench
spills out environmental grief
endangered frogs; worms, eggs and more
extinguished life so brief.This ritual autopsy site
pays due respect. Excised by knife
a pig’s obituary judged
within the court of life.
4 Cheesy Feet by Celia Berrell
(First published in CSIRO’s Scientriffic #91 May 2014)Bacteria between your toes
can give you smelly feet.
But do you think that toe-jam
would be something people eat?B. linens eats your feet’s dead skin
then burps out fumes we suffer
containing some ammonia
and compounds made from sulphur.This very same bacteria
is used to make some cheeses
that can really smell revolting
(but they have a taste that pleases).This queasy-cheesy combo smell
might make you want to scram.
They’ve now made cheese from microbes
found in belly-button-jam!
5 The Turkey of Christmas Past by Celia Berrell
A turkey is invited to
our favourite festivities.
The centrepiece of Christmas feasts
to eat with friends and families.You know that quaint tradition
where a bone is snapped in two?
They say who gets the biggest piece
has wishes that come true.This wishbone, called a furcula,
has opened up time’s doors
and shown us that all birds descend
from ancient dinosaurs.Theropods like big T rex
had wishbones in their chests.
And walked upon their two back legs
just like our turkey guests.Imagine going back in time
to capture Christmas dinners.
To find a one-ton theropod
in duckling-fuzzy feathers.This pretty feathered dinosaur’s
a Turkey from the past.
Its drumstick legs and wishbone
were interminably vast.There’s Fuzzysaurus sandwiches
for breakfast lunch and tea.
This ancient fluffy dinosaur
is Turkey Christmas – totally!
6 Fearing Forgetfulness by Celia Berrell
Light-filled galaxies
forged from thoughts
actions
contemplations and revelations.
This is my museum of memories.
Infinitely grand.
Carefully catalogued.
All my own handy-work.The treasure-grove of my mentality.
Agile and active.
Fertile and furtive.
Sentimentally hoarding trinkets of detail.Statues of heroes
line its dendritic walls.
Corridors contain names and places
dates and faces, filed and found
in the snap of a synapse.Portraits and landscapes hang
in annexed galleries
sunbeam-streaked
ready to speak out
about the beauty of life and love.Firm foundations
genetically aspire to eternity.
But eventually
my museum will succumb
to the stellar dust and detritus
of my own super-nova blasts.
Untethered pasts
tangle with today
fading tomorrow far away.What day is it?
What year is it?Worse still,
time-worn threads
fray neuron-laced networks
that knit short-term thoughts to action.Oh, I forgot to ….
never mind.Later, I might stand in a ruined room
where busts have lost their features to strangers.
Galleries go mouldy from cataract gloom
and books lose their print.Maybe I’ll be alone
unravelled
chasing faint wisps of interstellar space
wondering how
a museum of memories
spiralled into a black hole.Was it mine?