We Sail Paper Boats: Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award Winners Anthology 2024

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Anthology

We Sail Paper Boats Poems by the Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2024

“It means the world to me to win the Foyle Award. Now I have the courage to show everyone my voice; to demonstrate that I am worthy of being listened to and that there are many in the world willing to listen.”

– Evie Lockwood, top 15 winner, Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2024

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Anthology The Poetry Society 22 Betterton Street London WC2H 9BX poetrysociety.org.uk Cover: James Brown, jamesbrown.info ISBN: 978 1 911046 55 4 © The Poetry Society and authors, 2025 The title of this anthology, We Sail Paper Boats, is taken from Jake Moss’s commended poem ‘Sometimes I wonder what death feels like….’.

This anthology is available in a range of accessible formats.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us at fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk

Contents Introduction 4 Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2024 6 Top 15 Poems Meredith Wade Brine Pool Butch 7 Juliana Xinwen Pan A Ballad for Cleo 8 Indy Moon Loud 9 Tasha Yang Forgive 10 Isaac Meredith Done 11 Freya Beer Mean girls 12 Ernest Wakeford Tulips 13 Evie Lockwood Brandon* 14 Adrien Sevaux The smell of the moon 15 Rina Olsen self-portrait as a dead deer 16 Idris Scrase For 17 Grace Bowen when you get in a car crash 18 (hopefully never)* Charlie Jolley Brighton Run, 1964 20 Yousef Alawi How Can I Write When There Is a Boy* 21 Holly Hellman On the Last Day 23 The Poetry Society 25 The Foyle Foundation 26 About the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 27 Further Opportunities for Young Poets 28 Further Opportunities for Schools 29 Acknowledgements 30 Enter the 2025 Competition 31 * Content warning: these poems contain graphic imagery and refer to violence.

Introduction ‘Judging the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award this year was a genuinely restorative experience; to see so many poems written by young people, while initially daunting, reassured me that poetry is healthier than ever, and continues to lure fresh minds into its weird, millennia-old conversation. I was impressed by those poets replying to the older, more formally regular traditions, and how deftly they managed things like metre and rhyme, but also by those poets finding new shapes, structures and cadences for their concerns; most of all I was impressed by how imaginatively and wholeheartedly these poets ventured into the world, asked questions, and replied to it: with tenderness, social conscience, and novelty of thought and phrase. Vanessa and I were moved to laughter, to gasps of surprise, and (rarest of all for us two) to silence. I had a blast!’

– Jack Underwood Judge of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2024 The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award has been finding, celebrating and supporting the very best young poets from around the world since 1998.

Founded and run by The Poetry Society, the award has been supported by the Foyle Foundation since 2001, and is firmly established as the key competition for young poets aged between 11 and 17 years.

In 2024, we received over 17,000 poems from over 6,600 poets from 113 countries. 15 top poets and 85 commended poets were selected by judges Vanessa Kisuule and Jack Underwood; together, these 100 winners showcase some of the most exciting young voices today. Reflecting on the judging experience, Vanessa commented: ‘I had a glimmer of intrigue as I read the first line of each entry: where might this poem take me? This year’s entries took me to so many wondrous and unexpected places. I loved the poems that were playful with form and language and the poems that stood in humble awe at the beauty of nature. Some poems made me cackle and others made my stomach twist in recognition with the pain and struggle they depicted. Jack and I were awestruck at how precocious and assured these poets are. Amongst them are the future stars of the poetry world and I’m honoured to have had this glimpse into the crystal ball.’

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This anthology contains the top 15 winning poems and celebrates the names of the 85 commended poets. A sister anthology, collecting the commended poems, is freely available to read online (alongside a wide selection of anthologies from previous years of the competition and accompanying teaching resources). All of the poems were written by poets aged between 11 and 17 years. Both anthologies demonstrate a breathtaking array of talent that promises to inspire poetry lovers everywhere.

The poems in this anthology consider friendship with care: through tributes to friends, evoking shared moments of joy and recognition, or exploring a sense of loss felt when a friendship fades. They transport us through time: ‘Brighton Run, 1964’, for example, takes us back, while ‘On the Last Day’ imagines the end of the world. Nature is evoked in spinning metaphors about a mysterious you, as in ‘Tulips’ or ‘For’.

The young poets do not shy away from speaking of oppressed histories – consider, for instance, ‘Brandon’ and ‘How Can I Write When There Is a Boy’. We have added content warnings to three poems, signposted at the top of the pages in question and on the Contents page. We recommend younger readers ask a trusted adult to look at the poems before reading them alone.

This year, we have made available online a special version of the commended poems anthology, which caters particularly to younger readers. Find it at issuu.com/poetrysociety. To enhance your enjoyment of the poems, videos of some of the young poets reading their work are available on The Poetry Society’s YouTube channel.

Together, the young poets explore the breadth of their lives and the world around them with heart and language, turned new for the reader. The title of this anthology, We Sail Paper Boats, is taken from commended poet Jake Moss’s poem ‘Sometimes I wonder what death feels like…’. Despite the poem’s provocative title, those paper boats are the image of buoyant optimism. In this, they capture the spirit of this year’s winning poems, which ring with hope. We feel certain that this anthology will inspire more young people to write, share their work and enter the competition.

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Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2024 Top 15 Winners Yousef Alawi · Freya Beer · Grace Bowen · Holly Hellman · Charlie Jolley · Evie Lockwood · Isaac Meredith · Indy Moon · Rina Olsen · Idris Scrase · Adrien Sevaux · Meredith Wade · Ernest Wakeford · Juliana Xinwen Pan · Tasha Yang Commended Poets Maama Affaidu · Mariya Ali · Lara Antelo-Miles · Mallik Arjun Ahluwalia · Khadija Bashir · Lily Brady · Roberto Bravo · Juliet Capgras · Cameron Carvalho · Cheryl Chen · Max Cooke · Lewis Corry · Shani Dicks · Chloe Ding · Lucy Edmunds · Holly Ellis · Síomha Gallagher Charlton · Honor Giardini · Tabitha Giddings · Izzy Goldberg · Dorit Greene · Kyla Guimaraes · Lillia Hammond · Aurora C. Haselfoot Flint · Jasmine Heath · Tilde Hill · Emma Catherine Hoff · Radian Hong · Nabeeha Hoque · Sophia Irwin · Adanna Paradise Isiodu · Hema Iyer · Derek Jiu · Emma Rose Johnson · Leah Katz · Bryan Kim Short · Astrid King · Ela Kumcuoglu · Ethan Kwak · Elise Buckingham Lazell · Maya Le Her · Kyo Lee · Max LeMaître Nugent · Aster Li · Olivia Mandache · Maryam · Michelle Masood · Sophie Mauritz · Sarah McCready · Poppy McSweeney · Flora Molnar · Alex Moore · Jake Moss · Archana Nadarajah · Zhuoyuan Nie · Vanessa Y. Niu · Chloe Oulahan · Camille Polyakova · Yeshe Rai · Laura Russell · Aarush Saha · Simone van der Schaft · Shmayam Shahid · Isabelle Sheath · Harpreet Singh · Devanshi Sinha · Usmi Sohoni · Chantel Sorae · Isobel Starks · Albie Sullivan · Leena Tageldin · Ayanna Uppal · Abi Vance · Humayra Vohra · Katie Walker · Evan Wang · Matilda May Wiggins · Anna Winkelmann · Eva Woolven · WYR · Yarema Yakobchuk · Ziyi Yan · Patrick Yates · Rina Yoshikawa · Chelsea Zhu

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Meredith Wade Brine Pool Butch Once, I watched her come up out of the water, crystalline white, salt crusted over skin, stuck with heavy damp, the saline lined scars scraped over rippled skin. She’s pulled through by a tideless water, the dark undersea salt still, straggling, dragging on her shoulder.

That day she was a sun, fingers burning from the wet. We dried in unbelted car seats, purpled and mineraled knees with brushed off sandy floors and peeling skin.

I wanted to lay below the surface, lean back and submerge. Marinate there till she drags a salt-licked thumb towards me, trawling a cross up eyelids and between brows, pushing despite the water, its struggle against her forearm, seething.

Then I’ll let my hands find her: searing hips, skin’s blood-like copper flush.

We balance together over the brine and I realise that even though I’m not a swimmer, our surfacing felt real, and so did I.

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Juliana Xinwen Pan A Ballad for Cleo After Corey Van Landingham’s ‘Elegy’ Laughing Cleo. Red-eyed Cleo. Cleo who once sobbed with me over a B or a C in the cafeteria still smelling of sticky floors and cardboard pizza crusts. Sweaty-handed Cleo, my partner in homemade Chinese lunches – fried shrimp, cold rice. Cleo of the itchy yellow wool sweater and too-long, too-green shorts. Of always smiling too wide, laughing too loudly – Cleo, the sister who guided sea turtles through the orchestra room one chaotic day in September, who collected neon tardy slips to language arts class. Cleo of laughing for the 1,754th time – who always picked up my calls and listened to the late-night ballad of frogs. Who followed my tears in my backyard, in my quiet bedroom until my graduation. Of seasoning her accent, stretching words. Who taught me the classical beat of friendship each time she tickled her piano. Cleo. Cleo – wandering angel eyes she always hated but I always loved.

Cleo, who hid behind the same blue cap every time she walked into school, to mask her pretty, insecure gaze. Imperfect, perfect Cleo, who chased every light on the path to growing up – who followed my waning shadow until I let go of those precious hands glowing in the windows of my room. I still hope we’ll laugh for the 1,755th time.

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Indy Moon Loud wine spins at the bottom of our glasses words collect on the table in front of us and I forget to double check the thoughts as they leave my head love shouted across the kitchen at 6 years old I didn’t know love could be loud I didn’t realise kitchens were more than knives lend me your mascara mess their hair into place ‘here, stay still’ as glitter falls onto our shoulders fake unis, games no one loses your plate is mine and I’m sure they can all hear us – I’m tipsy enough not to care pull over, finish screaming the song I haven’t had my hands out the windows in years I think we could touch the clouds

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Tasha Yang Forgive Forgive him for walking like an Antarctic penguin with a stomach full of inferior beer Forgive him for his vulgarity and spitting everywhere Forgive his cheap shoes, the holes in his clothes, the dark weeds on his head Forgive him for turning his face away coldly when he saw us in the market Forgive him for never inviting his classmates to his home – an old house of 40 square meters There were five beds in it: his father and mother, his uncle and aunt, two sisters, and one for him He said that he often dreamed of countless bed legs spinning in the air Forgive him for never having been to Beijing, never having seen the sea The narrow gutter in front of his house was the only river he crossed every day Forgive him for laughing at the white cross on the roof of the church and asking: Was Jesus a rich man?

Forgive him for hating those who drive Mercedes, and saying that when the revolution breaks out, he will not spare them Forgive him for having stalked his own sister; when she went on a date, he hid behind a tree and left only after seeing the man’s face, kind as he needed it to be Forgive him for beating his dad – a mobile gambling addict, the sturdy northerner who fell from scaffolding a few years ago and broke a leg, received only 70,000 RMB in compensation So, forgive his dad, who told his son at 16 to quit school and sell vegetables Now, not only can he remember the faces of all his customers, but which faces are good, which faces are mean The poor boy was once a child with wings who dreamed of becoming an aircraft maintenance technician Now he lives in a world of chilli, tomatoes, potatoes, and cabbages, and flies are the only flying things His ideals disappeared like a mouse in a hole So forgive him for saying the Constitution is a rotten onion The Constitution and the Bible, like the people, are sometimes respected and sometimes trampled We must also forgive his latest ideal: at the age of 20, to find a wife who can sell vegetables at 3 a.m. on a tricycle, so he can sleep in Once he fell asleep in class, and the gentle light shone on his round white face, revealing a mysterious smile The teacher stood aside, quiet as a nun, and said softly: Wang Pengcheng is like a sleeping Buddha He’s tired, let’s forgive him

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Isaac Meredith Done I’d known her since Year 7 when she and her troupe of extroverts would shout my name across the road as I walked home, and laugh at my bafflement.

She dyed her hair red then blue, then red again – in time-lapse it would look like a distress signal.

When she first touched my arm I felt her abiding interest in textile design, like my flesh had use.

We were amused all the time and there was an irony in embracing which created pleasant distance.

The problem I have is the fact that when she closed her mouth, she closed it forever, and turned to some shadow, talking far outside of my life.

She released a bird from its cage, a green budgie that got trapped in the nail salon’s air vent.

Then she lifted the habit, let it settle on her marvellous hair, didn’t say anything, just left, and her footsteps were normal all down the stairwell. Also it rained.

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Freya Beer Mean girls We don’t rate the class gerbils One whack and they’re as good as gone We linger back instead You drive a hand against my neck Thumbprint as a heart locket This is when we are friends We smoke lollipop sticks Tell Four-Eyes she can’t sit with us You knock against my head think anyone’s home I knock against yours You swallow my hand whole

We fall apart after the gerbils are gone (Mum says I’ve only grown an inch)

One day I’ll see you on the bus You’ll say Hi So I’ll say Hi I’ll linger too long Unlight my cigarette Press my thumb into my neck

It won’t bruise.

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Don’t

Ernest Wakeford Tulips Your numb, dry tongues, pressed, hung in the air, dull butter knives, rubber eggs.

Thick-walled veins suckle slow in grey.

You’re flattened, empty like peeled oranges and lying on the wind thin and dumb as anything.

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Evie Lockwood Brandon

Conten t warn transp hobic ing: assault

In Memory of Brandon Teena When they struck, he wasn’t Thinking about hysterectomies To fulfil him, Or monochrome newspapers Recounting his surgeries: Girl becomes Boy. No, he was envisioning the Now, the crescent, yellow moon Eclipsed by the wall of the inn, The rhythm of music yelling Across his feet, wrapped in the Vermilion folds of his old jacket, Its chequered entrails fraying Beneath his fingers. The last Bubbles of a mint fizz on His tongue, warding away the Scent of flesh, the metallic shock Of blood, his blonde hair Breathing the clean aroma of Blue Leather, 80% aqua.

Then they slunk out of the Bobbing shadows of the street In a threatening whirr, bringing With them a thunderous American silence.

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Adrien Sevaux The smell of the moon Like the inside of a new book made of stainless steel Or Cleopatra’s eyes after a milk bath Or autumn five hundred years ago in a mushroom field Less organic, more tannic Crisp like brisk white Arctic starlight Like Greenland, bathed in silver night with orange glow Like the underside of a mercury wave in fifty thousand years Like New York City long after all the shit has burned down Like new black plastic, huge and unseen

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Rina Olsen self-portrait as a dead deer i pressed my nose to the phone screen as if i could smell your voice: an optical illusion, wherein my wet black nose is mistaken for the twin barrels of a rifle. i smelled out a target and for once i’ll admit that i’m sick of that smell haloing me. i took the color of the bullet and smeared it onto my antlers just to call them mine for another day. it’s why i walked out into the road – i was looking for myself. i thought i saw, on the rain-black asphalt, archetypes melted down to Telecom Yellow. i thought of how i was used to defining myself by the empty space i held together, like a cobweb, and i think i liked the idea of converting myself into the period at the end of a sentence. a signature on the dotted line crumpled into a dot. a bullet hole. a body that had burnt away the muscle memory of running. i did what i could and that was to stare into twin gilded scrying bowls and find my reflection, grit & gravel outlining the muzzle. i think this is just to say that for once, i wanted to be the destroyer. i wanted to be the pulse in the car engine. to fit myself into the palm of a dented car fender and learn how it feels to pick myself up and look into the headlights again, and lick away whatever it is around my mouth.

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Idris Scrase For I notice you in the light distilling on the dawn’s eyelid I notice you in the handwriting of dew budding bright the lacework of spiders holding the sun’s atom and your laughter in this palmful of minnows splintering waterlight under a window of reeds I know a room. I know the way a piano stands like a horse grinning in shadow. I notice our mouths unfurl like two nightflowers, folding in reverse. I notice our flesh grows inward to the same point. Like a pendulum of blue wisteria, lit and loosening down a slanted weathervane.

I notice your absence crowds me like crows festering those bald branches.

I hear the lilt of your breath like a moth lifting a wing, a petal of frost deep under my ribs’ cattlegrid.

I notice it is midnight in Trondheim. The snow laid out like a carcass of pearls and the gooseberries jewelling it. I notice a colour, pressing there in the silence between stars, like ripeness under the lid of a greengage. Somebody lifting the sky’s mute curtain, to let the light in.

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Love opened like that promise in space. flickering, incremental then all, a lungful of seaglass the horizons petalled in emerald and Heaven’s canvas burning.

Dusk now and the quiet sun dips its wounds against the leaves which flicker lucent. Astonished, their skin a tapestry of stained glass letting each drop of twilight slip tender through the clear flesh (soft as a word your lips loosen to the dark) and then it’s gone.

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Grace Bowen when you get in a car crash (hopefully never) the lights will knit a bulb in front of your own two eyes so holy you’ll swear you were visited by another spirit for weeks afterwards. what no one will tell you is all you saw was the compound of your mind bombing itself. when snakes overheat, they thread their tails through their own jaws and auto-cannibalise. shortly after my twelfth birthday, i began to pare the skin around my nails until they looked and burnt like the flesh of a chilli pepper. when my wounds got infected, i sterilised them with diesel and water – or maybe it was honey. i won’t remember and i think that’s the point. you’ll understand once you see the dizzying ferocity of it all, once you feel the airbag bruise your temple in a million shades of purple like a violet blooming across your skull.

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Conten tw graphic arning: image ry

Charlie Jolley Brighton Run, 1964 Look at the way I charged along the pier, through the forest of rain-oiled parkas – the uniform of the teenage military, keeping my head low and my hair high. And look, there are the baton-laden boys in blue chasing us into the future like a huffing steam train, cherrytopped by their soup-bowl helmets that we lobbed into windows like bricks. We were all aimless you see.

Told at twelve that our destination was slate-faced, shovelling coal to heat some cardiganned tosser and his perfumed wife. Did they expect us to bouquet our gratitude and swallow down our polite little lives with our sloshing pints?

Behind the American-pink chippy are the colonial coppers trying to beat the sense back into us that our fathers knocked out years ago, their battering batons a broomstick, a belt, a hissing cigarette, this stretch of sea, a Friday night front room. It’s hard to believe that this moment was bound to a dusty corner of Brighton, between the blond beach and dollhouse shops, when labour was not yet antique. But just look at me, not running but gliding through the streets, army-swift, like nothing in the world could ever matter more. It never did.

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Yousef Alawi How Can I Write When There Is a Boy The politician stands upright against the wooden panel.

Tie tied tighter.

A politician is a white flag, The very fabric ripped off our martyrs.

A white flag raised for distant enough eyes, Red specks up close.

Conten tw graphic arning: image ry

A boy runs so fast there is blood in his teeth. teeth in his blood.

A boy is ducking behind the car seat in hopes the bullets will only fly overhead.

A car is between alleyways.

A boy is praying, praying, praying, What do I have to speak for if a boy still has to run?

What is there to write when there is an assortment of bullets on the table?

Little missiles stacked into summer-coloured plastic trays?

This pile of limbs, scorched and soot-infested? A car disfigured with wounds, all entry and none exit?

Your eyes already begin to scan this debris for a body.

For red.

A boy turns himself into a weapon That makes a sound so slicing it cuts deeper into skin Than the click of a typewriter.

I thought I was a boy turned weapon but I was just wordplay.

All tongue.

A boy is a boy, A boy is a gun.

The pressure pressures an impression against his skin But all you feel is a ripple.

A boy is always a gun always, 21

Don’t you forget A boy is a gun only because he is made to be one.

A boy is a boy, A boy is a body.

Red against the charred white shirt he wore to surrender.

A boy becomes a white flag.

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Holly Hellman On the Last Day On the last day the farmers left the latches to their grain stores lifted.

The animals had long since been de-domesticated, and now roamed freely in the few remaining deciduous forests.

The fields had been seeded with Oak and Pine.

It was the least they could do, in the end.

The switch to turn off the electric grid was flicked.

Teams of men with ladders sauntered up motorways, tearing down pylons to prevent future entanglements.

There was no hurry. It was a job worth doing properly.

There were no children. This was something they had all agreed on.

There could be no children.

Fishermen sailed out into the sea and caught and released fish for the joy of it before snipping their nets into coiled slivers.

It was a beautiful day.

This was another thing they all agreed on. The last day would be beautiful.

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The reactors had finished powering down a few days previous.

Channels had been dug deep to hide the waste from Whatever Came Next, a topic of wistful speculation.

Evening broke early on the last day and the world felt enormously calm.

Speeches were made, and toasts, many toasts, to the Earth and its Creatures and the end of Guilt.

Those in the cities stumbled out, down the fresh-cleared roads.

Those in the villages welcomed them with food, hearty food (for they had all agreed it must be hearty) and they all drank as one and cheered the One Good Deed, the Great Undoing.

They left as suddenly as they had arrived.

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The Poetry Society The Poetry Society is the leading poetry organisation in the UK. For over 100 years we’ve been a lively and passionate source of energy and ideas, opening up and promoting poetry to an ever-growing community of people.

We run acclaimed international poetry competitions for adults and young people and publish The Poetry Review, one of the most influential poetry magazines in the English-speaking world. With innovative education and commissioning programmes, and a packed calendar of performances and readings, The Poetry Society champions poetry for all ages.

The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is at the core of The Poetry Society’s extensive education programme, and it plays an influential role in shaping contemporary British poetry. Achievements of some of the previous winners in 2024 include: Phoebe Stuckes’ debut novel Dead Animals was published by Hachette; Jade Cuttle was named a BBC New Generation Thinker; Imogen Wade won the National Poetry Competition, Troubador International Poetry Prize and E.H.P Barnard Prize; Ananditha Venkatramanan was named Warwickshire Young Poet Laureate 2024/25; Cia Mangat won the Poetry Business New Poets Prize and Charlie Jolley was commended; Maya Little won the Platinum Award in the Creative Future Writers’ Award Poetry category. poetrysociety.org.uk

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The Foyle Foundation The Foyle Foundation was established in 2000 as an independent grantmaking trust to distribute grants to UK based charities (primarily arts and learning) and schools. The Foundation’s long planned spend down and closure takes place in December 2025, by when it will have distributed over £180M in total, including a number of legacy projects with long-term benefit. The Foyle Foundation has invested in the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award since 2001, one of its longest partnerships, during which time it has developed and grown to become one of the premier literary awards in the country. The Foundation has recently awarded a major legacy grant to The Poetry Society to support the continued delivery of the Award over the next ten years. foylefoundation.org.uk

Help young writers thrive The Poetry Society’s work with young people and schools across the UK changes the lives of readers, writers and performers of poetry, developing confidence and literacy skills, encouraging self-expression and opening up new life opportunities. Support us by donating at poetrysociety.org.uk/donate

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About the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award Established in 1998, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is The Poetry Society’s flagship education programme. In 2024, we received over 17,000 poems from over 6,600 poets from 113 countries. The competition’s scale and global reach shows what a huge achievement it is to be selected a winner.

Every year, 100 winners are chosen by esteemed poets who are passionate about discovering new voices. Winners receive a range of brilliant prizes, including a selection of poetry books donated by our generous supporters, and talent development support, such as mentoring, performance and publication opportunities, throughout their careers.

Alongside the competition, the award supports poetry in schools. Free teaching resources, including the winners’ anthologies, are distributed to schools worldwide, and The Poetry Society arranges poet-led workshops in culturally underserved areas of the UK. Each year, we celebrate ‘Teacher Trailblazers’: individuals who have shown outstanding commitment to poetry in the classroom. In 2025, we are delighted to work with Margaret Vos from Darrick Wood School, Kent and Gavin Husband from Dronfield Henry Fanshawe School, Derbyshire to share their enthusiasm for poetry with the wider teaching community.

The award has kick-started the careers of many well-known poets. Former winners regularly go on to publish full poetry collections and are often recognised in significant national competitions for adults. We are confident that the most recent winners will reach similarly dizzying heights, and we look forward to discovering yet more fantastic young poets in years to come.

If you’re a young writer, enter the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2025 and you could follow in the footsteps of some of the most successful poets writing today.

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Further Opportunities for Young Poets Young Poets Network is The Poetry Society’s online platform for young poets worldwide up to the age of 25. It’s for everyone interested in poets and poetry – whether you’ve just started out, or you’re a seasoned reader and writer. You’ll find features, challenges and competitions to inspire your own writing, as well as new writing from young poets, and advice and guidance from the rising and established stars of the poetry scene. Young Poets Network also offers a list of competitions, magazines and writing groups which particularly welcome young writers.

In the past year, our writing challenges have invited young poets to reinvent myths, think about the link between sound and nature, use tools including rhyme, metre and stanzas, imagine a better world through poetry, and draw inspiration from food, the ocean, and the world of cinema. We’ve also published articles including insights from previous Foyle winners on how they wrote their poems and a playlist of poems by LGBTQ+ poets for Pride month, as well as how-to features on editing poetry, doing a freewrite and starting a poetry club at school. Young Poets Network also partnered with the T.S. Eliot Foundation to run the Young Critics Scheme, offering ten emerging poetry reviewers the chance to develop new skills around reviewing and share their thoughts on the T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist.

For updates about poets, poetry, competitions, events and more, like us on Facebook and follow us on Bluesky, Tiktok and X, @youngpoetsnet and Instagram @thepoetrysociety Join the Young Poets Network mailing list to be part of this vibrant community of poets and continue your poetry journey. Sign up by visiting ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk

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Further Opportunities for Schools Download free poetry teaching resources, lesson plans and activities on our resources site, Poetryclass. Covering all ages and exploring many themes and forms of poetry, each resource has been created by our team of expert poet-educators and teachers. resources.poetrysociety.org.uk Book a poet to visit your school through our Poets in Schools service.

Poets can deliver one-off workshops, long-term residencies, INSET sessions for staff, and poet-led assemblies. Online and in-person options available. poetrysociety.org.uk/education School Membership connects your school with all that poetry has to offer. School members receive books, resources, posters, Poetry News and The Poetry Review (secondary only), as well as discounted access to our Poets in Schools service. poetrysociety.org.uk/membership Cloud Chamber is an online network for poets and teachers delivering poetry in the classroom to come together and discuss ideas, experiences and best practice. Meeting regularly on Zoom, each session considers a different theme. A presentation by an experienced poet-educator is followed by discussion time, and an accompanying resource is circulated afterwards. It is free to attend and is open to anyone with an interest in poetry in the classroom. Find out more at bit.ly/CloudChamberPoetry Sign up to our schools e-bulletin by emailing educationadmin@ poetrysociety.org.uk You can also follow The Poetry Society on X and Bluesky @PoetrySociety, and on Facebook and Instagram @thepoetrysociety

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Acknowledgements The Poetry Society is deeply grateful for the generous funding and commitment of the Foyle Foundation, and to Arts Council England for its ongoing support: together they have enabled us to grow the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award into one of the world’s most prestigious writing competitions for young people. In 2024, we are also indebted to the Thistle Trust, which has supported talent development for former winners, and to Sue Dymoke for the legacy which allows us to build on our work with teachers.

Thank you to 2024’s judges, Vanessa Kisuule and Jack Underwood, for their time, passion and support for the competition and The Poetry Society. Thanks also to the dedicated team of poets who helped the judging process: Aliyah Begum, Helen Bowell, Ella Duffy, Keith Jarrett, Rachel Long, Maureen Onwunali and Joshua Seigal.

Thanks to The British Library for providing a venue for this year’s awards ceremony. We thank Bad Betty, Candlestick Press, the Emma Press, Faber, ignitionpress, Macmillan, Out-Spoken press, tall-lighthouse, Forward Arts Foundation, Carcanet, Poems on the Underground and Divine for providing winners’ prizes. Thanks to Arvon for hosting the Foyle Young Poets’ residencies.

Our thanks go to Marcus Stanton Communications for raising awareness of the award, and to James Brown for designing the Foyle Young Poets anthology artwork. Thank you to our network of educators and poets across the UK for helping us to inspire so many young writers.

Finally, we applaud the enthusiasm and dedication of the young people and teachers who make the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award the great success it is today. foyleyoungpoets.org

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Now YOU can be part of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award Aged 11–17? Enter the competition by 31 July 2025 Judges: Colette Bryce and Will Harris Enter your poems – change your life! The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2025 is open to any writer aged 11 to 17 (inclusive) until the closing date of 31 July 2025. Poems can be on any theme and must be no longer than 40 lines. The competition is completely free to enter.

Prizes include poetry books, mentoring and the chance to develop your talent through publication, performances and writing opportunities. If you are selected as a winner, you will join a vibrant community of young poets. The award has shaped the careers of many well-known poets writing today.

How to enter: please read the updated competition rules, published in full at foyleyoungpoets.org. You can send us your poems online through our website, or by post. If you are aged 11–12 you will need permission from a parent or guardian to enter. You can enter more than one poem, but please concentrate on drafting and redrafting your poems – quality is more important than quantity. Entries cannot be returned so please keep copies. For more information, visit foyleyoungpoets.org School entries: teachers can enter sets of poems by post or online. Head to foyleyoungpoets.org for instructions and to download the submission form. Every school that enters 25 students or more will receive a £50 discount on our Poets in Schools service. Want a FREE set of anthologies, resources and posters for your class? Email your name, address and request to fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk Find out more and enter online for free at foyleyoungpoets.org.

Remember, you must be aged 11–17 years on the closing date of 31 July 2025. Good luck – we can’t wait to read your poems!

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‘Amongst these young poets are the future stars of the poetry world.’

– Vanessa Kisuule Judge of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2024