Yesterday we held our poetry challenge final on Googlemeet – what an amazing line up of poets we had on the call! Our host was the wonderful professional poet and coach Adisa who kept everyone inspired and entertained throughout. He was joined by local young professional poet Benna, the new Lambeth Poet Laureate, who performed on the call his moving poem Breathe. But with no disrespect to Adisa and Benna, the stars of the the show were 14 primary school poets from the BLC who had written and performed to the highest level, showing the wealth of talent we have in our schools. Their theme was Hope and each poet took the title and made it their own. It was almost an impossible task to decide the winners of the competition, but in 3rd place congratulations go to Fahreed and Isiah from Archbishop Sumner Primary for a fantastic dualogue poem that was impeccably performed; in 2nd to Kitty from St Saviour’s for a brilliantly written and performed solo piece and the winning spot went to Peace from St John’s Angell Town for an utterly compelling and moving poem about hope coming from life in a war zone. Commendations also went to Banke from Christ Church SW9 and to Kadija from Loughborough. Children have shared some of their top tips to encourage their peers to write: ‘Don’t do what others think you should do, be UNIQUE’ was Kitty’s advice; ‘Believe in yourself and never give up. Always be positive. Try to expand your vocabulary’ came from Kadija. We look forward to producing an e-book of the poems and tweeting them over the next couple of months as part of our Summer of Wellbeing.
The Brixton Learning Collaborative 