This new prize is a great way to honour a great poet while simultaneously introducing young people to the thrill of poetry.
Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy


What an excellent website! Great to see John Betjeman living on here. Poetry is a way of looking at life and wondering about it in ways that interest us. Betjeman himself did that in many ways and I hope this competition inspires young people to read his work and of course write poetry themselves.
Michael Rosen


I wish the John Betjeman poetry competition existed when I was 10 - it would have been like a second Christmas! You lot don't know how lucky you are!
Laura Dockrill


As an English teacher, I believe that the John Betjeman poetry competition inspires students to express their appreciation and love of poetry and is an opportunity for them to be independently creative and competitive.
Sue Osman, Weald of Kent Grammar School

Welcome to the John Betjeman Poetry Competition

Jennifer Burville-Riley is the winner of the John Betjeman Poetry Competition 2011.

At a special prize giving ceremony held on the Upper Concourse of  St Pancras International beside the statue of Sir John Betjeman on Tuesday 4th October, our patron Joanna Lumley presented Jennifer with her prize.

To show their support for the John Betjeman Poetry Competition, a number of distinguished guests attended the awards ceremony, including Brian Patten, Sir Edward Fox, Joanna David, Phyllida Law, Hugh Whitemore, A.N. Wilson and Andrew Martin.

The two very close runners-up on an exceptionally strong  shortlist were Daisy Adams and Dualtagh Grundy. The highly commended entrants were Alexander Christie, Charlie Corlett, Madeleine Southey, and Gabriel de Sousa. After the presentation of the prizes, afternoon tea was held in the beautiful Ladies Smoking Room of the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel.

Laura Dockrill will visit the winning school, the Weald of Kent Grammar School, in the new year to hold a celebratory poetry workshop.

 

 

Above: This year’s winning poet Jennifer Burville-Riley with Brian Patten and Joanna Lumley.
Photo © Rickford Compton, Reel Talk magazine

The winning poem:

Saint Wyllow’s Bridge by Jennifer Burville-Riley, age 11

This is a bridge between summer term and autumn,
Weather-bleached boards
across a Cornish creek
where tidal waters ebb and ease,
where riverweed dances
to the ocean’s pulse,
where armoured crabs
battle underwater
and treasure-fragments
await my discovery.

This is a bridge between truth and myth:
I press my ear to the creaking timbers,
sensing the ancient steps
of a persecuted saint
who walked a half-mile
to reach this bridge,
cradling his own
decapitated head.
I taste his salt-tears,
sharp to my tongue,
hear teardrops
flow to a grieving sea.

This is a bridge between past and present:
I conjure visions
of colourful barges
docked at the quay
in bustling days of industry,
loaded with coal and limestone rocks
destined for the fiery kilns.
There are pack mules and horse drawn carts.
There are children gathered
to watch men at work.

This is a bridge between childlife and teenhood,
a place to catch eels, net crabs, to dive or float,
build driftwood rafts, watch bats by moonlight,
hunt for ghosts, read books, skim stones.
I text my friends but find there’s no signal,
scrawl a note instead and stick it in a bottle,
drop it in the water,
the twinkling river light
winks back
as my summer-self stands
between two worlds.

 

 

 

Young people love poetry, and the John Betjeman Poetry Competition is an excellent way to channel creative energy: there's a deadline, there's a subject, there are prizes...what more does a poet need?
Ian McMillan