Poetic prizes for Perse languages students

Amy and Liana (both Year 9) displayed plenty of poetic prowess in a foreign languages verse competition.

They won their respective age categories in the Mother Tongue Other Tongue poetry competition, organised by Routes into Languages East.

In the Mother Tongue section, Liana, who originates from Hong Kong, translated a traditional Chinese poem, Xiang Si, from her native Mandarin into English.

She said: “I was quite surprised to win because I don’t do a lot of poetry, but I did quite a lot of work on this and I was happy with it.

“The poem I chose to translate dates from the Tang dynasty (which ruled China between the 7th and 10th Centuries). It’s a short poem of only 20 characters and this is typical of Chinese poems from that time, but they can convey quite a lot of meaning in a short amount of words.

“The title translates as ‘Longing’, so I really thought about what words to use because the Chinese is very concise and I wanted to try to keep that rather than it becoming a very long paragraph.

“In terms of what inspired me, it’s about how sometimes I miss my friends in Hong Kong and I think the poem reflects that.”

Meanwhile, Amy won the Other Tongue category by penning a poem in German entitled Über den Zaun (Over the Fence).

She said: “Poetry is something I do occasionally, but I write quite a lot of lyrics for songs that I make, which is similar to poetry. I really enjoy languages as well, so getting the chance to write a poem in another language was a good way to combine both things.

“My poem is about what life is like in a different world, which can be seen ‘over the fence’, so for example, part of the last verse translates as ‘The flowers there are bright, But here they are brown’.

“It’s a rhyming poem, so I had to find the rhymes for it in German. I thought about it in terms of syllables and just wrote it, while looking up words that had synonyms that worked.

Amy attended a Mother Tongue Other Tongue celebration event at Murray Edwards College, held as part of Cambridge Festival.

She said: “I’d like to go to Cambridge and do a languages degree when I’m older, so it was a really good experience.”

Both Amy and Liana’s poems will feature in a special anthology featuring a collection of verses from the winners and shortlisted entrants later this year.