After a challenging year, it was a wonderful and uplifting experience to host our Young Person’s Prize Giving on Zoom recently.  In normal circumstances, prizes are awarded at the annual North Cornwall Book Festival but, in fact, holding the event on Zoom actually meant that most of our esteemed winners, who were scattered across the country, were able to attend.  The theme for the 2020 competition was Environment and many children worked on their poems during the first national UK lockdown.  The prize winners were praised by the judges for the imaginative ways in which they interpreted the theme.  You can click here to watch a recording of the prize giving event and hear the winners reading their poems.  Alternatively, you can click the links below to read the prize winning poems.  We hope you enjoy the amazing talent of these gifted young people!

Category A Winners (Age 5-11)

First Prize – The Things I See in Colour by William Irish

Second Prize – Hammering Rain by Betty Tibbets

Third Prize – Billy the Tree Bumble Bee by Imogen Cripps

First Highly Commended – Tilly Tiger by Alexandra Prideaux

Second Highly Commended – Wedmore by Molly Morris

Third Highly Commended – Dawlish Beach by Finn Morris

Category B Winners (Age 11 – 16

First Prize  – Mabel by Rosa Hitchings

Second Prize – Taiwan by Martine Maugüé

Third Prize – I sleep in purgatory by Emma Kurr

First Highly Commended – And the Rain Fell by Phoebe Clayton

Second Highly Commended – The Fox by Ben Ellis

Third Highly Commended – War Garden by Lily Wells

Category C Winners (Age 16 – 18)

First Prize – the surroundings or conditions in which one lives or operates by Mia Griso Dryer

Second Prize – Sestina Men of Earth by Camille McCarthy

Third Prize – Identity Loss by Glaire Gao

Highly Commended – Something Lost by May McEvoy