Staffordshire poetry competition winners announced
The winners of the first ever 'I Love Staffordshire' poetry competition have been announced.
Rebecca Lockwood, aged 16 from Cannock, won the 11-16 year olds category while nine-year-old Honor Sutton from Stafford under 11's category.
The competition, organised by Enjoy Staffordshire and libraries across the county, was held as part of this year's Staffordshire Day celebrations on May 1.
Rebecca, a pupil at Cannock Chase High School, won a pair of Thrill Hopper passes for theme parks around Staffordshire and a workshop for her school with performance poet Giovanni Esposito. Her winning poem was entitled The Stag and I.
She said: "I am eternally delighted and overwhelmed to have won the Staffordshire Day poetry competition, poetry has the ability to bring people together from all walks of life and I cannot thank Staffordshire Libraries enough for allowing me to contribute to the beauty of it."
Honor, whose poem Staffordshire, My Favourite Place To Be scooped the under 11's category, won a class trip to the Trentham Monkey Forest, a Monkey Forest family ticket and a £50 One4All gift card.
The Oakridge Primary School student said: "I was happy to hear that I had won but a bit surprised too. I wrote the poem for my Grandad who hasn’t been very well and I wanted to cheer him up. He loves poetry himself and got me into it. He wrote one about me when I was born which I still have.
"My Grandad loves Staffordshire and I wrote about all the places he took me in my poem. I wanted to make him proud too. I’m looking forward to going to the Monkey Forest with my class.”
The competition was judged by Staffordshire poet laureate Bert Flitcroft, young poet laureate Isobel Horsley, poetry on loan co-ordinator Brenda Read-Brown and Terry Heath from Staffordshire Libraries and Arts Service.
The winning poems can be viewed at www.enjoystaffordshire.com/staffsday
