Poppy Poetry 2010 winners announced.

Published on 22nd Feb 2011

The winners of Poppy Poetry 2010 were announced today (22 February). A full list of the winning poems and poets can be found here www.poppyscotland.org.uk/education/competition.

The press release read as follows -

Pupils from three schools from across Scotland have won a national poetry competition, organised by ex-Service charity Poppyscotland, in partnership with the Scottish Poetry Library.

Poppy Poetry is part of Sowing the Poppy seed – Poppyscotland’s education project that teaches pupils about veterans, remembrance and conflict.

The competition received over 1,500 entries within the categories of P4-7, S1-3 and S4-6 and the winners are:

• Flora Smith, age 11, P7, Cargilfield School, Edinburgh - Pain

• Catrin Stephen, age 14, S2, Banchory Academy, Kincardineshire - My War

• Heather Smith, age 17, S6, Duncanrig Secondary School, East Kilbride - The Leftovers of War

Pupils were invited to write poems of between 3 and 30 lines on the theme of What is a veteran? and were encouraged to either draw on their own experiences of meeting a veteran or use one of three selected photographs and quotes from veterans as inspiration.

At a presentation in Edinburgh today (22 February), the winning pupils met Royal Navy medic Lisa Hickie, who served in Afghanistan and whose image was featured as part of the stimulus. The pupils were awarded a digital compact camera and their schools were given an SLR digital camera. As part of the prize, winning pupils' classes will enjoy professional poetry workshops with the Scottish Poetry Library.

Poppyscotland Chief Executive Ian McGregor said: “We were delighted by the response to Poppy Poetry from schools all over Scotland. We had a high standard of entries and it was clear that a lot of hard work and creativity had gone into the poems. We hope that this different way of learning about Poppyscotland’s work is an experience that will resonate with the pupils as they grow up.”

Robyn Marsack, Director of the Scottish Poetry Library, commented: “We are glad to be partnering Poppyscotland again this year in looking for an imaginative insight into the lives of Servicemen and women of the past and present. The winning poems go beyond the physical details that so many of the entrants dwelt on to portray attitudes of mind and heartfelt emotions, and the young poets’ confident choice of language and form made their work outstanding.”

Sowing the Poppy seed was developed by Poppyscotland and Learning and Teaching Scotland in conjunction with Determined to Succeed, Lady Haig’s Poppy Factory and the Royal British Legion Scotland. The materials include films, challenges, posters, poppy seeds and archive footage, as well as activity guides and research activities to support teachers.

Sowing the Poppy seed can be downloaded from www.poppyscotland.org.uk/education

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