Past Winners2007: FlightFlying fish prove to be a valuable catch in major UK poetry competitionIs poetry a flourishing and popular art form in UK schools today? The answer is a resounding ‘yes’, judging by the winning poems in this year’s Christopher Tower poetry competition, the country’s most valuable poetry prize for sixth-form students. The six top poems all showed startling originality, inventiveness, wit, and an assured mastery of form and imagery, but it was seventeen-year-old Charlotte Runcie of St Albans High School for Girls who fended off strong competition to scoop the £3,000 first prize with her poem, ‘Flying Fish’. 2006: A BuildingTower Poetry builds on success as top young UK poet scoops £3,000 first prizeThe UK’s most valuable poetry prize for young people has been won by Colette Sensier of Varndean College, Brighton. Her poem, ‘Country House Communion’, secured the £3,000 Christopher Tower Poetry Prize in the face of strong competition this year from an impressive number of aspiring poets. At a reception for the prize winners at Christ Church, Dr Peter McDonald, the college’s Christopher Tower Student and Tutor in Poetry, praised the formal control and variety of all the winning poems, and spoke of how “once again the Tower Prizes have shown that young people can write poems of startling intelligence and originality, with the kinds of creative independence too often lacking in contemporary British poetry.” 2005: GravitySixth-form student Eleanor Williams has won the £1,500 first
prize in this year's competition, which was judged by Philip Pullman,
Gillian Clarke and Peter McDonald. At a reception for the prize winners
at Christ Church, Oxford, Dr Peter McDonald, poet and Tutor in Poetry
at Christ Church, spoke of his admiration for the winning poets: "Every
year, the judges are surprised and encouraged by the skill and creativity
of the winning poems, and this year is no exception; the work we are
celebrating today shows adventurousness and confidence, as well as
impressive maturity in the handling of poetic forms and styles". 2004: "Early Morning"Katherine Hindley of South Hampstead High School, London, was the
winner of the Christopher Tower poetry competition in 2004 with her
poem 'Sunrise in Egypt'. Katherine won a cheque for £1500, while
the second and third prize-winners, Nancy Freeman from London and
Laura Tisdall from Bradfield-on-Avon, each won£750 and £500
respectively. 2003: "Passport""The judges were very impressed by the standard of this year's
poems. We read some strikingly original treatments of the passport
– some literal, others metaphorical – which show how subtle
and thought-provoking young people's thoughts on this subject can
be." - Dr Peter McDonald. 2002: "Floods"In its second year the competition challenged students between 16-18
from schools and colleges throughout the UK to write a poem on the
theme of ‘floods’. Dr Peter McDonald said: "The winning
and short-listed poems display many kinds of imaginative resource,
and show how good young writers can rise to the challenges of the
kind which this competition sets" 2001: "Blue"In 2001, the first year of the competition, the judges - Andrew Motion
(Poet Laureate), Paul Muldoon ( Professor of Poetry at the University
of Oxford), and Peter McDonald (Christopher Tower Student and Tutor
in Poetry in English at Christ Church, Oxford) - selected these seven
winning poems, all on the set theme of 'Blue'. |
