We’re so excited to announce the winners of the I Am the Seed Nature Poetry Competition!
I Am the Seed That Grew the Tree: A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon and collected by Fiona Waters, is a beautifully illustrated collection of 366 nature poems, one for every day of the year. To celebrate this epic poetry book, we invited budding poets aged 7-11 across the nation to write a poem inspired by the natural world.
From haiku to sonnets to rhymes and riddles, we received hundreds of wonderful poetry entries. Fiona Waters, the acclaimed anthologist behind I Am the Seed that Grew the Tree, was kind enough to do the hard work of choosing the overall winner and two runners up.
The winner is 9-year-old Soirse Metrusty Fox from St Gildas’ Catholic Junior School with her beautiful poem, Wandering on a Winter’s Night.
Fiona enjoyed the ‘lovely inner rhymes and very well sustained shape form to the whole poem’. Soirse will receive a unique framed print of her poem, illustrated by artist Frann Preston-Gannon.
Soirse was delighted to win and said ‘Thank you very much for this prize and opportunity, I am honoured to have been picked as the winner. At first, I didn’t know I would get this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I am very proud of my teachers for helping and inspiring me. Thank you!’
Teacher Hayley Clarke submitted the poem on behalf of St Gildas’ school and has said ‘We are incredibly proud of Soirse here at St Gildas’. She is a talented author and illustrator and we are thrilled to see this recognised in a national competition. She loved the writing process and had borrowed our school’s copy of the I Am the Seed that Grew the Tree anthology to read at home – so this is a much deserved achievement.’
Wandering on a Winter’s Night
As I wandered, ahead I could see, against a tree,
Silver wolves prance and snowshoe hares dance
As I wandered, a small crimson-ruby fox,
snuck under an emerald bush
As I wandered, the silver coal-grey moon smiled upon me
as the medallion-yellow stars light up my path
As I wandered, a wolf’s lemon-yellow eyes and inky ears,
caught me in a calming trance
As I wandered, I could hear,
the soft crunch of the satin smooth, silver snow underneath my lost feet
As I wandered, a chestnut doe and her fawn picked the frozen fruit of an icy apple tree covered in diamond snow
As I wandered, the winters charcoal mountains towered over me
as a robin redbreast landed on an icy branch
As I wandered, I came across an icy lake full of tiny teal fish
As I wandered, a small, electric-blue bluebird perched on a pines outstretched hands,
ready to catch the first opal snow
As I wandered, the whispering pine trees swayed in the frozen wind of winter
The two runners up are Rory Hunter, aged 7, from St Stephens C of E Primary School with his poem Foxes and Oscar Hankin, aged 9, from Sutton Valence Preparatory School with his poem The Wind. They will both win a copy of the beautiful book, I Am The Seed That Grew The Tree. You can read their entries below:
Foxes
Foxes, Foxes I like foxes
With their orange backs
And white
Stomachs
With their
Black eyes as black as
Crows and their bushy
Tails as
Orange
As a
Carrot.
Oh how
I love a
Good old
Fox, for
These 4
Reasons.
The Wind
The wind whispers to me
Telling me if it is happy
Or maybe ANGRY!
The wind dances in the sky
I can hear when it cries
Violently it plays with the leaves
The wind howls
The wind growls
It bangs on the door
When it releases its lion roar
Helping kids fly a kite
Always there, even at night
The wind makes you cold
Just to be told
It will never die
It is everywhere
From ground to sky.
Thank you so much to all of the children and schools who sent in poems! We were positively overwhelmed by the number and quality of entries. It’s been a joy to hear from all of the young poets out there!
—-
If you sent us a poem and would like to have this returned to you, email [email protected] with your name, school and poem title along with your address and we will send it back.
