Poetry winners receive awards in Fenland Poet Laureate 2022
Winners in this year's Fenland Poet Laureate competition have been presented with their awards at a ceremony held at March Town Hall.
Last year's winner Kim Allen gave a talk during the evening on her initiative launched during her year as Poet Laureate - the Wisbech Stanza Group.
Cambridge University student Qu Gao, from Chatteris, was named as Fenland’s new Poet Laureate when the winners were announced last month.
Qu is a second year student at Corpus Christi College and moved to Fenland from China when she was just two.
Her poem ‘o732, March to Cambridge’ was described by the competition’s adjudicator Elisabeth Sennitt Clough, who is an award-winning poet in her own right, as a “very worthy winner”.
The Fenland Poet Laureate Awards 2022 encouraged writers to submit entries inspired by their surroundings and everyday lives in the Fens.
Alan Wheeldon, from Wisbech, was awarded second place for his piece ‘Stop the Sea’.
While third place went to Rex Sly, from Doldyke near Thorney Toll, who entitled his poem ‘Urban Sounds’.
Highly commended grades were awarded to: Tincy Binu, of Wisbech, for ‘Fascinating Fenland’; Stella Snow, of March, for ‘A Walk in the Park’; Phyllis Gall, of Chatteris, for ‘Moods of the Fens’; and Hilary Parry, of Newton-in-the-Isle for ‘Riot and Rejoice’.
Wisbech Grammar School students scooped the first, second and third prize in the Young Fenland Poet Laureate 2022 competition.
Isabelle Slade-Stollery was awarded first for her poem ‘My Home’, Ayra Patel was second for ‘Fenland’s Beauty’ and third went to Amelie Barclay for ‘Walking in the Fens’.
Highly commended awards in the young poet category went to: Steph Harbord, of Thomas Clarkson Academy for ‘An Autumn Poem’; Shea Augustin, of Elm Road Primary School, for ‘Wisbech’; Archie Edgson, of Wisbech Grammar School for ‘Our Great Fens’; Isabelle Brown-Ahern, of Wisbech Grammar School for ‘The Celestial Fens’; and Alice Blundy, of Wisbech Grammar School for ‘The Fens are My Home’.
