Year 7 poetry competition winners

Josh L was the winner of the Year 7 Poetry Competition with his short poem about grasping life by the hands. 

The English department run an annual competition where they encourage pupils to be creative and inspired and write a poem about a subject they are passionate about, entertained by or one which intrigues them. 

The poem could have been anything from a personal subject, local events to a worldwide theme – or in our runners-up case about the universe! 

English teacher, Mrs Webster said: “Our poetry competition is always highly competitive, we get a lot of entries and we love the enthusiasm our pupils show for it. 

“Josh’s poem won as it was a poignant poem, especially in light of the current pandemic, about grasping opportunities in life when you can and it had a nice positive message.” 

Josh said: “I never expected to win. The poem took me about 40 minutes to write. English is one of my favourite subjects and I wrote about Covid as, during lockdown, we haven’t been able to do things but when we can, we should take part in everything we can.” 

Daniel McC was the runner-up with his in-depth poem about planets and the threat to their existence by humans. 

“I do really like exploring the universe and it’s something I know a lot about, I find it interesting," said Daniel.

Mrs Webster added: “Daniel put such a lot of effort into his poem, it was well-researched and he made sure it was factually correct. 

“The message behind it is save the planets and it’s something he is obviously passionate about.” 

Life is to Live by Josh

Life is to live, grasp it by your hands
Lots of lands,
Brave and optimistic
Some would say simplistic.
It could go one way or the other.
Starting with your mother,
you'll start with a guide
open world you'll go and glide
failure and success
this is what I should address.
So, what will you do?
It's up to you!

Planetary Destruction by Daniel McC
 
Destroying planets. What? 
Seriously, who would do that? 
More importantly, why would they do that? 
I shall tell you... 
 
You see, gravitational interactions between Venus and Jupiter 
Have not permitted life to exist in peace 
For every 405k years these planets affect the Earth’s orbit 
And next time human population could decrease 
 
So, a solution could be to destroy said planets 
Or possibly go even further 
And destroy all planets round our sun except our own 
As a method of defence like no other 
 
However, that idea could go horribly wrong 
I can explain... 
 
4-5 years ago, American scientists devised a plan 
To bomb Mercury into splinters of rock 
And construct a mirror shield around the sun  
From the fragments, but there was a stumbling block 
 
The shards would most likely fall to the sun 
Though life would not be affected in the least 
There would be no effects when said planet’s existence 
In the expanse of space just ceased 
 
Jupiter, however, would be challenging to destroy 
There are numerous possible methods to try 
But since the planet could not be ignited due to lack of oxygen 
Why not blow the planet out of the night sky? 
 
An explosion powerful enough to do this would require 
Four times the mass of the moon 
In nuclear bombs, and the blast itself 
Would incinerate half of the Earth to ash too soon 
 
In summary, destroying planets is unwise 
We would be better off shielding the Earth 
With some form of cosmic defence screen 
That would be enough to allow future birth 
 
What you can do now is not encourage global warming 
And do what you can to protect the present Earth 
So, until technology advances and solves this problem  
You should do what you can to help now