Usmi becomes Foyle Young Poet of the Year 2024
Many congratulations to Usmi in Year 11, who has been named one of this year’s Foyle Young Poets – this is a highly prestigious award given to only 100 young people aged 11-17 out of 6,600 entries from 113 different countries. Usmi’s poem will be published in an online anthology, and she also attended an award ceremony at the British Library which she describes below.
Usmi writes, ‘In early September, I was informed that I had been chosen as one of the 100 winners of the Foyle Young Poets award 2024. This is an international award that many people participate in, so it was a huge honour to be recognised for my work!
I was invited to attend an award ceremony at the British Library in London on the 9th of October. This was a really fun event as we got to hear the judges, Jack and Vanessa talk about their selection process and experience with reading and writing poetry. We also got to hear some poetry recitals, and the members of the Poetry Society even created a slideshow of their favourite lines from each of the winning poems.
The poem I had submitted was called “How would you paint if you couldn’t see,” and it was a really candid poem I wrote as an experimentation and exploration of the five senses, and the different ways in which we perceive colour both in the natural world and in the artificial. It was quite a personal poem, yet so far removed from my experience that I found it both challenging and greatly rewarding to write. You can read the poem below.
To end the ceremony, there were a bunch of writing tasks for us to engage with, such as writing our favourite lyric on a large sheet of paper, trying to write a line of poetry from various random stimuli and listening to music and writing down what it sounded like. They took a large group photo of all the winners, and we had an opportunity to get to know each other a bit better, especially since people had flown from all sorts of places (America, China, Nepal) to attend the ceremony. Overall, it was a lovely experience, and I’m very lucky to have been invited.’
Impressively, this is the second year running that Kendrick students have been recognised by this award, after current student Noemi and former student Gabby were Foyle Young Poets in 2023. This is a superb reflection of Kendrick’s vibrant poetic culture, and we would encourage any keen poets to enter for the 2025 award as well as take part in the many opportunities to write poetry in school.
Congratulations again to Usmi on this outstanding achievement!
Mr Stephen Dilley, Head of English