We are delighted that Roshy (IIIK) has won the inaugural Schools Poetry Competition, overseen by Wealdon Times and Surrey Homes “Education” magazine.

The competition was judged by the award-winning children’s novelist, Sally Gardner, and the magazine’s editor, Maggie Alderson. In a highly competitive field, the judges were so impressed by Roshy’s poem, written on the theme of summer, that a special award of distinction was created for it: the Sally Gardner Poetry Prize.

Gardner said of Roshy’s poem: ‘This poem is well over the years of the writer; it’s quite astounding. This is clearly someone who reads, they love language and had a real feel for their brief. I’m sure I will run into Roshy on the literary circuit in the future.’

Roshy’s impressively-crafted and vivid poem can be read below. We are extremely proud of her!

By Mr Li - Head of English 

Summer Poem by Roshy

We left the garden fat with summer’s growth
left behind the still, parched air thick with smoke
from next door’s pit
scorched flatbreads, garlicky baba ghanoush
and morsels of piping hot fatty lamb
and plunged towards the coast
seeking air that is heady with ozone and salt
rock pools glinting with spangled light
toes exploring crevices in the rock
where winkles may be hid.

Fringes of seaweed tickle my soft undersoles,
so I wade deeper wanting to sink into the silty sand,
splash my sun-charred flesh in the cool green water.

Swaying in the pool I hear the guttural yaw of the engine first,
peering up into the blue bowl of sky
I see a tiny plane carving the air,
pirouetting, streaming headlong
in spirals and arabesques,
leaving a looping, white contrail
in his wake;

I follow his every move in wonder
he skims the rim of the sky,
arches back impossibly and nosedives
pell-mell towards our placid sea
pulling up wildly just before the two
elements crash.

I see this matchbox plane of finespun metal,
a platinum gleam in the summer sun
spun by this pilot, across the skies
in a dangerous wonderful web,
for nothing more than our own momentary
revelling in a wonder that is a summer’s day.