Foyle Young Poets award: read the winning poems

…because today is National Poetry Day in the UK. So let's celebrate it with our own event or activity. We can do this for the rest of the month too. Check out the Facebook page, Twitter too @poetrydayUK

On National Poetry Day, the 15 winners of this year's Foyle Young Poets award, open to 11-17-year-olds from around the world, were announced. Chosen from a record 7,351 entries to the competition, here are the winning poems to tempt your poetry palate:

Baking by Phoebe Boswall

Smells of baking remind me of you.
Your red apron, my small striped one with the torn pocket.
Your soft stretched skin, fingers kneading dough
into a ball. My fat floury hands
grasped for your amber necklace,
Quick, Phoebe, the oven!
You played with flavours,
made little blobs of buttery dough on the tray
Your warm kitchen, my safe haven.
You taught me your language:
bicarbonate of soda, self-raising flour, vanilla extract,
millilitres of milk, grams of sugar:
caster, muscovado, granulated.
Now your apron hangs empty on the peg.
I wear it from time to time; mine with the torn pocket
doesn't fit anymore.

....
Reach/Throw/Wade/Row by Phoebe Stuckes

She is the class of crazy that inspires adoration.
She stacks vices like bracelets, works herself into hysterics,
Don't give her matches she will pinch them till her fingers scorch.
I know she is gorgeous like a thunderstorm, but stop trying to hold her hand.
Her heart is too heavy for you to lift.
Her pain is impossible, you can keep wrapping your arms around her but she'll never stay upright.
Her stares are hospital corridors, passageways hiding chaos and anguish.
'No, you can't have a cigarette.'
She lost the ring that I gave her; on ardent impulse I wanted to throw her a lifebelt.
A reminder that she and I are washed up on the same shore.
Being with her is like seeing Alice drink the vial, watching herself become vast and destructive.
I cannot keep her safe; I cannot bear to watch her fold.

Click and read the rest of the winning poems