The 2025 Charles Causey International Poetry Competition and Young Person’s Poetry Competition have both been judged and we were delighted to officially announce the winners at this year’s Launceston poetry festival last weekend!

These are the winners of this year’s International Poetry Competition:

1. Penny Sharman – ‘Complaints about pigeons and the loss of goldfinches’
2. Carlos Andrés Gomez – ‘Thin Line’
3. Jane Wilkinson – ‘Spear thistle’

Highly commended:

Sharon Black – ‘In The Garden of Fleeting Mutability’
Anna Forbes – ‘Sanctuary’
Lesley Sharpe – ‘Spell to quell a storm’

And now for the winners of this year’s Young Person’s Poetry Competition:

In the age group 5-10:

1. Maya Pal – ‘Dawn’
2. Clara Atkins – ‘A Life That’s Mine’ –
3. Ruby Roe – ‘What Peace Means to Me’

In the age group 11-15:

1. Faith Lydall- ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Peace’
2. Daya Newcombe – ‘Coffee and Chocolate’
3. Frieda McNeill – ‘Scott’s Quay’

In the age group 16-18:

1. Freya Beer – ‘words to be shouted across a battlefield’ –
2. Saba Ghandi – ‘O, my country, my love’
3. Zayn Kubba – ‘Salama’

Congratulations to all of the winners! It was a joy reading all of your poems and hearing your bright and brave voices speaking out on the theme of peace. We hope you’ll take part in Causley Competitions in the future and for now wish you all the best. Enjoy celebrating your success and keep an eye on our website to see your work featured in our literary blog!

Thank you so much also to all of our amazing winners and their families who came to Launceston to celebrate with us in person!

And for some closing words from this year’s head judge of the poetry competitions, Tommy Sissons: ‘It’s been such a pleasure judging these competitions. It’s also been incredibly difficult to decide on the winners considering how much fantastic work was submitted!’