Creative Writing

The summer term saw the welcome return of the Staveley Poetry Prize.

Distinguished judge, Prof. Peter Robinson, poet, critic and academic, selected winners in the three age categories and awarded the prizes at the awards ceremony in Skinners’ Library. The prize celebrates the importance of creative and original thought and is named after the highly regarded poet and English teacher, Tom Staveley.

Prof. Robinson commended all the entries he had received. Overall winners were George Pearson (SH1) who won the Novi Prize, Ben Adams (OH2) who won the Intermediate Prize, and Matt Smith (JH4) who won the Senior category.

Senior Winning Poems

Commenting on George Pearson’s Racket Prof. Robinson noted how the poem created a ‘magic’ out of the simplest of objects, enabling the reader to see a familiar thing in new and vivid ways. On Ben Adams’ If only you had seen under the folds Prof. Robinson admired the tight and efficient form, noting how this intensified the emotional impact of this accomplished poem. He found Matt Smith’s Tunbridge Wells brilliantly inventive, creating powerful contrasts with wit to achieve a profound final piece.

Prof. Robinson commented on how very important creative thought was, especially after the many challenges of lock-down and praised the students, department and school for championing imaginative writing in all of its forms.

R H Evans

Tunbridge Wells | Matt Smith (JH4) – Overall Senoir winner

When the Moon came to Calverley, I thought reality had failed me. When the stars fall from the sky, they land in Tunbridge Wells. The Moon turned off at 9pm and they took it down; that was the last we saw of it.

I found bliss one day, lying on the wall by Calverley car park in the half term sunshine, a bittersweet symphony in my ears and my dirty white fashion trainers on my feet. Nobody spoke to me, nobody disturbed my reverie, I waited for my dad to come by in a car at 3.45.

Tunbridge Wells is an area in decline, said Mr. Gripper, way back when. Gone are the days of pilgrimage to KFC with my friend James, now the food court has nothing but a Subway.

Someone has chiselled an inscription into the Wellington Rocks. There are peace signs there, but no Swastikas. The inscription reads: A C I D.

The Nazi stickers in the public toilets have been replaced by trippy drawings. On the way in from Southborough, a Confederate flag used to hang from a council flat balcony. Now it is no more.

Were you aware the bowling green here is of world class quality? We write letters of moral outrage to the conservative papers, so that Middle England gets its just representation, we’ve had over a hundred years of royal status.

I find inner peace watching the skaters fail to land tricks off the pavement. By Calverly carpark, on a summer’s day, life is good. The skateboarders remind me that failure is transitory. Everything comes back to Calverley Park.

La Vie (1903) | Jamie Lambert (Sc5)

Joyfully pre-Raphaelite – bright with flattered hands and flattened rooms where Christ’s flat palms offer bread and blood in leafy parahelia.

A tiered dauphine is waited on with Velasquez inside, easel shadow straining beyond, passed looking to us through a glass as she teeters,

soon flitters into twisting gazing uses, aquiline breasts from the stippled hand, to be cubed like Schwitter’s magazines dissected: Is this what’s fought for? This compacted place – this trashy, saucy face boudoir – blank and naked blue which fills up with colic grace, syphilitic sad? For it’s not that tradition which perfectly paints, represents, interprets its own emotion – a petter’s re-presentation, imitation. And while Cabanel poses perfect, Albaydé’s doeish eyes sleep soporific. But that blue is cold and present and flat.

In a medicated organ trance whose sprained knees and brain would see anything but that purer blue expression of an impure blue impression?

Boann – Boyne and Solstice | George Thomas (WH4)

For renewal and rebirth

She knows how the love of men can rapture. With promise but no intention. Today she is a fly upon the wall.

When I was with Boann my heart felt trapped. For her affections overwhelmed my soul. I understand how the Dagda must feel.

He was the lover but is now the loved. Victim of feeling and now hurt in love. From conquest to capture, his pride is gone.

Renewed by her passion and set on the King. Rebirthed without construct and free to feel. I understand how the Dagda must feel.

Junior Winning Poems

If only you had seen under the folds | Ben Adams (OH2) – Overall Junior winner

He is the brown, threadbare jumper that hangs tiredly from your shoulders, its woollen strands clinging on.

He is the brown, cracked armchair, with a well in the centre of the leather, tattooed in cigarette stains.

He is the rusty screwdriver, with the red, plastic handle, who lazes on the toolbox floor.

When the day is grey and dull, he is the cloud of fog, creeping sluggishly through the dark.

He is the dim computer screen, that stares back after a long day at work, the bare clock at five in the afternoon.

He is the cheap Yorkshire pudding, adorning every roast dinner school lunch, small wrinkles in his oily skin. He is the planet Pluto, always the farthest from anyone else, wandering through the dark.

He lives in the plain bungalow, waiting patiently at the end of the road, silently waiting for a ring on the doorbell.

He is a lump of granite, lying discarded on the beach, buried and forgotten in the pretty pebbles.

He is the muddy dictionary, sat neglected on every family’s shelf, the gold text slowly fading from the spine.

He is the ancient telephone, that rings, unanswered, on the table in the hall, as the police sirens wail outside.

Pure Souls | Jean Van der Spuy (FH3)

Oddity of my dreams, I saw you only once before. Hues and hope flourished, And I felt every single pulse.

If I could draw or paint the scene, A photograph perhaps, Maybe it could have been worthwhile. It would have been better.

They had forgot the joy, Our worlds had been transfigured, And though I’ll still see them again. I lost her.

Seven Ways of Looking at the Sky | Nathaniel Chan (HS3)

I: “There will be grey skies and heavy rain expected today, and great bright strokes across the grey until 6 o’clock tonight.”

II: With this crystal ball, and the alignment of the celestial spheres, I will reveal your future. You are to be beyond the celestial world.

III: A cloudy arctic and a sun larger than cities face me, behind the glass, through the air, Untouchable and too high for most.

IV: A second sun rises, right next to the first, Although we can say that it is bright green with the words happy birthday upon it As it continues to go higher into the atmosphere.

V: Three, two, one, and take-off has been achieved. It is now time to break the blue wall and see the stars beyond it.

VI: From spacecraft and then along the waves we must ride, towards the satellite receiver outside Number 48, Dry Hill Park Road, carrying our evening for the champions league.

VII: It has been so far away from home, Every outside looks the same – several dots of white, some big, some small, drawn upon a black canvas of night.

Novi Winning Poems

Racket | George Pearson (SH1) – Overall Novi winner

The carbon fibre rim reminds me of a car spoiler. When I swing the yellow and black stripes make it buzz like a bee. It has a cold metal like feel. I pick it up from my cupboard by the grip: it sticks to my hand like a spider’s web. A man with a large wide tummy and a slim elongated neck. It moves by the motion of swinging it.

Racket heads have many holes. When one is hit perfectly, the target is scored. Not every shot will result in success: practising is vital and patience is key. A tennis racket can bring you happiness and joy but also anger and sadness: so many emotions from such a small object.

Light | Ben Rainsford (CH1)

Light is mysterious as it curls round corners cuts through panes of glass it leaves its trail behind like a blade cutting through the night.

It begins just after a planet falls from view and ends after a planet falls to sight as one minute it is there and the next it is gone. Travels like the wind, a pure mellow yellow.

We want it when we are at play But despise it when we sleep and snooze. It is quite a mysterious thing

Just Another Year | Theo Bourgeay (WW1)

Soft as silk, The lamb stirs, In need of milk, The kitten purrs, Early in the morn, The puppy raises its head, The kid surveys the golden dawn. All to return to bed.

The winter’s icy chill has melted away, The green of grass pokes through, Far in the distance a foal neighs, It is time to start another year anew.

The blaze of summer comes and goes, The crunch of autumn has passed, And winter has once again laid down its snow, Another year has come and gone just like the last.

With a heavy sigh, The sheep rises, In need of rest, The cat struggles to open its eyes, Too early in the forenoon, The weary dog rises, The wily goat got up far too soon, To face another day’s responsibilities

Hibernating season is over, It is time to retrieve some food, Far in the distance the landscape has had a makeover, It is time to trouble and toil once again.

The sweat of summer has yet again come to close, The search of food amongst the leaves has ceased, And winter has interrupted life, Another year has come and gone just like the last.