Pupils shed light on House Poetry Competition

13 Nov 2015

Over the past few weeks, budding poets at the Upper have been busy preparing their entries for the annual House Poetry Competition. This year, the theme was ‘light’, which was also the theme of this year’s National Poetry Day, marking the UN International Year of Light 2015.

The standard of entries was very high, and Fleur Christmas took home the Lower School for her excellent piece entitled ‘Light’. Alex Burson and his poem ‘Church Candle’ was awarded the Lower School Runner-Up prize. Sopie Littlewood was the winner of the Middle School prize with her piece ‘Light’, and Kiran Suman-Chauhan was the runner-up in this category also.

The winning poems have been reproduced below: we hope you enjoy reading.

Light – Fleur Christmas

Light

Spilling onto the Earth
like a crashing wave,
the lemonade jug
poured into every morning.

Swelling into the day
like a growing idea,
a golden balloon
filled with potential.

Surrounding you with warmth
like a hug from a loved one,
makes you smile
a hearty smile from within.

The source disappears
but a misty glow remains
reflecting off
the sickle moon.

The world is wrapped
in a shroud of dismay,
stumbling blindly
through space and time.

Until in the morning
light returns,
to inspire the world
once more.

Church Candle – Alex Burson

Light a candle,
Light a memory.
Flickering flames
Dance like acrobats,
Manipulating their bodies into curls and twists on the stone walls.
The singular flame burns calmly
Like dying embers in the hearth.

Slowly, prayers fill the air,
Voices,
Familiar voices,
The prayer became a figure,
A figure once standing
Now fallen,
Now a memory.
Tears swell,
Like pure sapphires,
Falling into ghostly hands,
Familiar voices die away,
Yet the memory is still strong.

Light – Sophie Littlewood

Laughter drips, accusingly rhythmic
in a fake room. Finery speaks in projected soliloquies;
Neon strips in chandeliers and painted lies,
wallpapered habitually on the cardboard.
Tell me I am blind when I talk in prose
and you sing to concrete. Walked away,
the understanding an unnoticed pretence.
Shadows flickering from immovable circles;
disgust and sympathy entertwine.
Complication of seeing
opinionated truth, my perceived candlelight
is shameful, but you hold a cloak.
When the dull backlights reprimand your voice,
realisation is an abstract noun. Brave journeys
To a wooden gate. How can you know the sky light
When you only know the neon? and the chandeliers.
 

Light – Kiran Suman-Chauhan

I remember the grand blazes in November,
I remember the hearth with its glowing embers,
I remember the sky lit up in the night,
I remember the candles, small flames bright white lights.
I remember the summer and dawn in the spring,
I remember the gold sun, a crown fit for a king,
I remember the stars shining over my head,
I remember the moon, the silver light that it shed.
I remember the water which reflected the sky,
I remember bright rainbows through the heavens would fly,
I remember it all, in the back of my mind,
I remember a time before I was blind.
They tell me the day is beaming and bright,
I open my eyes; to me, it’s still night,
I remember a time when I still had my sight,
But most of all, I remember the light.