WINNER – FIRST PLACE
The Oxford dictionary defines resilience as this, “The ability to adapt and grow despite challenges”. If only life was that easy of course, That the journey was a straight road without imbalances.
Competence, confidence, connection, and character, As well as coping, control, and contribution.
Igniting and encouraging the flame of resilience, Allowing future plans to come to fruition.
The world around us will never stop spinning, Your dreams to the sky must soar. Opening your heart to receive others, Their dreams in your heart, you will store.
But alongside developing your dreams, It’s all about living the life you have made. When life hands you a barrel full of lemons, Pick yourself up, smile, and make lemonade.
If I were to share my own tale of growth, And impart wisdom of how I got here today. About how I had to learn all this too, Before I could think of the words to say.
When I first began losing my hearing, When voices of loved ones began to disappear. I remember how sad and alone I felt, Wondering how I would manage life, my fear.
Struggling to hear conversations, How nearly every whispered word had left. Alone and locked outside of a world full of noise, And propelled into one full of silence instead.
Spoken language was a mystery, Like an unsolvable puzzle, it was my fate. Yet a shining beacon beckoned me forth, As learning sign language opened the gate.
Finding my tribe with other Deaf people, And expressing my story through poetry. Gives me hope that one day I might inspire, Others whose lives are like mine, in symmetry.
Life can be a rollercoaster of experiences, So please read my words and take heed. Those challenges can become beatable obstacles, You can dig deep and find the resilience you need.
Gemma Grace
Resilience in 2025
WINNER – SECOND PLACE
I came back with a passport full of skies and names, From winding roads and sunlit trains. But the real adventure began at my door Learning to grow in ways I’d ignored.
In 2025, resilience wears a calm kind of light, not just surviving, but choosing what’s right. It’s studying leadership with purpose and pride, While learning to lead the storms inside.
I planned a wedding with joy in my chest, While juggling new keys and a house to invest. Balancing dreams with a calendar full, Learning that love makes the chaos feel full.
There were days that felt heavy, nights that ran long, But I found quiet strength and a reason to belong. Not every step was graceful or clear, But I kept showing up, every month of the year
Resilience, I’ve learned, is not just to cope, it’s building a life on the scaffolds of hope. It’s bouncing into class with a mind that’s unsure, And finding, in learning, a kind of cure.
It’s choosing to rest when the world says “go,” And trusting that healing can still help you grow. It’s laughter in messes, it’s dancing through doubt, It’s knowing what matters and tuning life out.
So here I stand, not flawless, but free A patchwork of effort, becoming more me. In this year of movement, of meaning, of grace, I’ve found my own rhythm, my own steady pace.
James Stephenson
WINNER – THIRD PLACE
Resilience
I'm teaching my son how to be resilient, "If you learn how to fail son, you will be brilliant". He nods his head as if he understands, Only 18 months old, I'm not sure he can.
Part of that lesson is that life can be tough, As a parent you want to protect them from that stuff. You will win, you will lose, so develop that grit. Be optimistic, confident, and if you can't, fake it.
"Your son is hypermobile, he will struggle to walk" So he mastered the crawl, while learning to talk. They said to walk by 2 would be absurd, He beat that by 3 months and knew 200 words.
Maybe that's perseverance instead of resilience. But if you can do both then you are 1 in a million. "You have to adapt son, in the face of adversity" It will come thick and fast at school, college or university.
Manage the stress by getting to know yourself, Look after your physical and mental health. And if it all comes crashing down, Smile at the failure, reflect, and be proud.
But I will be with you every step of the way, As Bill Withers said it's a "Lovely day". So experience the world and always show love, "You are brilliant and resilient son, and you are enough".
Karl Digby
My Unyielding Flame
Should I fall and weep, shall I weep till I weep no more?
Should my sight be gone, worn by pain and torture, shall I see no more?
My fears awoken while I battle my worst enemy,
Deprived from perfection and wish certainty befalls me while I search day by day, just so I may breathe calmly and await no morrow.
With all these, my head whispers and I feel the sorrow.
The heavy weight I host upon my shoulder pays no wages.
The echoes of my ruin echoes with no rhythm but in return, wants me to dance with my sore feet unhealing.
But now I look towards the bright morning so bright.
Bright to be burnt and burnt to be reborn, In flesh and in bones as my strength unfolds.
I am free to fly and flee my suppressing woes,
For my dear globe has fallen before, but is always back to revolve, Not for now alone, but for my new globe on the morrow.
Let me be bent, and I will never break,
Let my feet rot from the spiking grounds I walked before,
And think I may walk no more, and I will speed twice, and walk the same path with pride.
Let my beautiful garment be rent, tattered and frayed and I will weave a wonderful tapestry.
I may have tasted the sourest milk of my unripen lemon before, But now I smile at every sip as I quench my thirst in every bit.
And should I go back to where it all began, I will be sure to remember my armour still holds.
It holds together with my gun; my gun loaded with the solace of certainty.
As I look towards the bright morning so bright,
Bright to be burnt and burnt to be reborn, In flesh and in bones as my strength unfolds.
I am free to fly and flee my suppressing woes,
For my dear globe has fallen before, but is always back to revolve, Not for now alone, but for my new globe on the morrow.
Edwin Osei-Frimpong
Resilience
What power does it force to you?
If you are chaining someone without chain. Chaining me, however I am free. Arrested me without hands and arms. Who can protect me if your face will shine on me? Please help me who ever hear me!
I started listening to the noise. It was strange, unfamiliar, and snorting. It was funny, odd, and grunting. Who are you? What do you desire?
Show me the way where to go. Should I follow?
Oh, I do not know.
Hardly, I feel, I think, I wish, I want, I will do it. Long and slow journey, Like a tortoise is walking on the field. But when it arrives the sea, I will see, we will be free.
Krisztina Marty
My Fellows are strong indeed!
1918, a raging year, the birth of plight resting in March, giving hand to May for my fellows’ doom.
A darkness made flesh. They called him “The Purple Death,” “Senior de la grippe,” “A Three- Day Journey Man. ”
Some say, “The Flu who was never Spanish” , others weep “our forsaken souls are being perished!”
He paraded in disguise and snatched my fellows and their fellows, leaving them in cold and despair, eluding many from nature’s coven walls.
Making them puppets to their ventriloquist. Their nemesis, prying into their bosoms in applause, not to be their Mother Rhea, but to plough their rotting floors so they may shout hurray! in their horror moors.
But my Fellows are strong indeed!
Their bodies may shiver as their mouths quiver, their hearts may wander but their minds never lost its honour, just like the clay never lost its potter.
My fellows’ fellows were gone but my fellows’ fellows arose, they arose to be risen from the rise of their risen master doom.
They crafted and rafted, they made their way into their fellow me century shroud. Beautiful and wonderful as I am amazed to be here now.
Their plants bear fruits, fruits bearing food as food bears flourishing moods, all these and more my people see as bloom.
Risen kingdoms and fallen kings, fallen kingdoms and risen kings, again, my fellows eluded from nature’s coven.
Torn to flesh and to bone, their souls deprived from the cozy sounds of their newborn motherland in 2019, by a common sombre rapture.
A far more quietus, raving in hate for nothing my fellows assaulted.
Sombre with no disguise, a path that my fellows’ fellow me has walked.
Clearing our generation as we maim for our own lives, whiles he turns our resting grounds flooding with epitaphs and non-concrete tomb.
For who would stay to design our forever resting grounds and lay wreaths where our heads forever dreaming, when we thrash to catch a day or meaning?
But my Fellows are strong indeed!
Their bodies may shiver as their mouths quiver, their hearts may wander but their minds never lost its honour, just like the clay never lost its potter.
My fellows’ fellows were gone but my fellows’ fellows arose, they arose to be risen from the rise of their risen master doom.
They crafted and rafted, they made their way into their fellow me century shroud. Beautiful and wonderful as I am amazed to be here now.
The pain seeps through their veins as the world loses its taste but to all whom may want to know, My Fellows are strong indeed!
Edwin Osei-Frimpong
