The focus of this year’s Basford Poetry Cup competition was on the way poets make use of rhythm as a vehicle to engage the reader with their ideas. Our poets had to consider not just using rhyme but also the number of syllables used in each line and the way punctuation is used (or not used) to emphasise key messages or concepts.
KS3 Competition
- Highly Commended: Olivia Wooley and Aathil Sebastian
- In 2nd place ‘The Day Everything Changed’ by Adwoa Marfo.
- In 1st place, ‘When I Stand to Speak’ by Sahib Singh
KS5 Competition
- Highly Commended: Adam Byrne and Rohan Sidu
- In 3rd place ‘Volume’ by Abena Marfo
- In 2nd place ‘Weather’ by Gabby Malik.
- In 1st place ‘Summer Yearning’ by William Jaundrell
William’s poem is filled with wonderful images of the natural world and the amazing creatures that populate our hedgerows and meadows. He uses iambic pentameter to establish a rhythm of around ten syllables in each line. However, the verse doesn’t feel forced or restricted. Instead, the poem bursts with vitality and exuberance.
Summer Yearning by William Jaundrell
Winter seems a veil of mist on the Earth;
I can hardly think of the glorious
Summer days that have been and yet to come.
Instead all I can hear is the jackdaw,
Agent of the Cloud-King; devious one;
It screams and wails a sad melancholy.
The ground is cold and wet; the air heavy
With moisture that sticks to me like sod.
Scared is the Sun of midwinter despair;
My fickle friend scarce seen since the Autumn
Currants sprang forth beneath then russet sky.
Yet so brave is the Robin, Prince of Yule,
Who perches gaily with his puffed out chest;
A memory of lighter, better times.
He reminds me of pure Summertime joy,
Of the chattering martens and quick-swifts
That jostle in church-eaves at yellow dusk,
Catching dragonflies in their smooth, small beaks,
Of hares sat proudly by brambled hedgerows
And heifers stood in dusty golden fields.
I think too of the mighty Hart, King of
The Beasts. He stands alone in quiet meadows; blue
And violet; bumblebees buzzing around.
Light will return here.
Briefly I am cast back to winter gloom.
I think of my companion, the Robin.
What does he do when the dog-rose flowers;
When foxcubs wander country avenues?
Doe he dalliance with Wren, Lord of the birds,
The two chasing pale-moths through the weald woods?
Perhaps they hide from the deadly kestrel
In sage forest glades, striking a chorus
Of joy that whistles through the brackish copse.
Light will return here.
I open my eyes; the jackdaw remains,
Though the Robin has disappeared.
I still think of him; of the summertime
We are due to share. Of how summer brings
To life the dormant. Then, in evening light
When green leaves hang on elm branches lowly,
I shall sit by the ancient churchyard yew;
He has stretched above the lavender since
Caesar’s Legions broke Caratacus near.
I shall ask him of Summertimes of yore,
Of yeoman’s boys off to market with their
Bull; the Sun, merry day-star, beating down;
And too of the faces that have passed him
Through the churchyard; parsons and priest-hunters,
Whitsun weddings and October wakes all
Having been done before him; venerable
He is, climbing past the lobelia.
Maybe my friend the Robin will return,
Chirping away, speaking to me and the
Field mice cavorting on the cobbled wall.
The jackdaw squawks again; light will return.
