CISC Poetry Competition – ‘Growing Up’

Whilst the quantity of schools entering the competition was disappointingly low, the quality of the poetry was outstanding and so we have worthy winners in both the Junior and Senior sections.

Thank you to Katie Hilder, St Teresa’s Prep, and Joanna Cottingham, St Mary’s Cambridge, for featuring the competition with their students and co-ordinating the entries, and to the writer Nick Perry for judging it. All of the poems can be found here.

Junior Section

First Prize Phoebe Richardson, St Teresa’s Prep
It has a poetic and formal structure with repetition and line length observed in every stanza to great effect. A simple but mature piece of writing.

Second Prize Grace Hall
Intoxicatingly positive and very good humoured. I really enjoyed her confident use of rhyme and half-rhyme.

Highly Commended Frankie Bryan
Displays a real sensitivity for words. I particularly like the phrase ‘woebegone thoughts’….very melancholic.

Senior Section

First Prize Emma Brown
It has an honesty that’s beguiling and with a few choice words she skilfully paints a vignette of different stages of life. Deceptive in its simplicity but a mature work.

Second Prize Eloise Scotland
A powerful and immediate piece of writing that explores the emotional landscape of growing up and concludes with a question that is searing in its honesty.