The Winners of the 2020 Newcastle Poetry Competition
18 May 2020
The Newcastle Poetry Competition’s Young People’s Poetry Prize is for poets aged between 11 and 17 from anywhere in the UK.
This year’s winners are:
Freya Buckley, (‘Windows’), Maria Cunha, (‘Comfort’), Maisie Goodfellow, (‘Frankenstein’s Monster’), Antonia Johnson, (‘Grandad’s House’), and (‘Once’), Philippa Musgrave-Asher, (‘Constellation’), Amy Nugent, (‘Treading Water’), Alice Parsons, (‘Cutlery’), Milly Sage, (‘Patti Smith’), Hope Simpson, (‘You Taught Me’), Nikolina Rokic, (‘Beautiful with a Question Mark'), Georgie Woodhead, (‘Baba’s Burgers’).
Vidyan Ravinthiran, judge of the Young People’s Poetry Prize, said of the winning entries: “in all of them, there’s a moment—or, longer than that, a duration—where language comes alive (it sparkles, flares) and words, rhythms, images achieve a compelling fluency…It was a pleasure to read them, and I hope the poets go on writing, and sharing their work: I look forward to seeing what they come up with in the future!”
Tomorrow,
The birds will still sing
And, the sea waves will still swell
And, sunrise will come again.
(from ‘You Taught Me’ by Hope Simpson)
Huge congratulations to all winners. A free digital anthology containing all the winning poems can be downloaded on our website