Congratulations to Amber, Year 7, on being crowned the winner of the 8 to 11 age group in the Worcestershire Young Poet Laureate competition. 

The search for Worcestershire next Young Poet Laureate ran from 13 January until 8 March 2020 with the competition comprising of three age groups 8 to 11 years, 12 to 15 years and 16 to 18 years. Each entrant had to submit two poems, one on the subject of ‘Identity’ and the other on any subject they chose. 

Amber, who is part of the Library Readers & Writers Club and supported by Mrs Neville, wrote two poems for the competition titled 'Identity' and 'An Ocean of Reflection'.

Identity by Amber

If all the world should shun your guilty face,
And all life run at the flick of your hand
And if everything you knew was to leave you,
Declaring you evil as they turned their backs,
Locking their doors and leaving you
Shut out in the cold of their hate.
I would ask:
Do you see what you have done?
Do you see who is wrong?

Oftentimes the answer might be that they are.
Other times it might be you.
I can see your identity as you fade among the scores of people
All still struggling with themselves.
Because whether you be in the wrong or not,
You may soon learn change is your personality.
Change has made you what you are and it will shape you
Like a child playing with a handful of clay.

So if ending up here is by your action or not,
Whether you have taken an iron to the crumples and curves in your body.
Whether you have been shaped and destined to love your own gender.
Whether you were just trying to get some of yourself back.
Or perhaps you defied them.
I only hope that change can bring you better times

 

An Ocean of Reflection by Amber 

A long stretch of pebbled sand under a stormy sky
With choppy waves that never rest and a whole other world,
Strange creatures and the whisper of a thousand voices in a shell
And thoughts that run free and wild in the sand.

If I were to wander like the gently blowing wind
Along the shoreline that’s wiped each day
And observe the life that blossoms and thrives.
If I watched the children pick up the bones of dead things
And build with the sand, castles and spires against the soulless sky.
Perhaps I would find, what I have come to see
These places of havoc are a reflection of my mind.

Crashing waves and rolling thunder
The oceans anger obliterating emotion.
Calm, quiet gently splashing,
But likely to pull you down at any time - grasping you into its depths.
Freedom is nigh in the sound of the waves
The glimmering foam like a sparkling jewel of thought.
This is my mind.

I am like those waves that beat mercilessly on a fragile shore
And those smooth ancient rocks that have been shaped.
Like the entity that harvest strange ways of life
I have worshipped as those creatures must do to the emotionless ocean.
And the sand being used in any and every way
I too have been a tool for others in life.
And as for the sound of the waves slapping onto the rocks
- The less said about that the best.

I am alone and free.
Conflicting and dangerous.
I am this place.