Young Poets Awarded at Chiswick Book Festival

Performance poets thrill and inspire competition entrants

This year's poetry competition prize winners with their certificates. Picture: Roger Green

September 20, 2024

On Friday 13 September the Chiswick Book Festival held the prize-giving for the Young People's Poetry Competition 2024.

The competition is still going fourteen years after it was established to stimulate creativity and writing skills in children and young people. The competition is open to all children in Years 3-7 from all areas and prizes are awarded within each of the five-year groups to ensure children from different age groups are judged separately. Children are invited to write a poem at home, or at school, about whatever inspires them.

Young poets entered from schools across the London area including: Ark Byron Primary Academy Acton, Hounslow Heath School, Nishkam School West London, Chiswick & Bedford Park School, Ark Priory, Beavers Community Primary School, St Stephen’s Church of England Twickenham, St Mary's Catholic Primary School , Edge Grove Independent School Watford, Sussex House School, Orchard House School Chiswick, Belmont Primary School , Chiswick School, Southfield Primary School Chiswick, The Ellen Wilkinson School for Girls, Radnor House Prep School, St Augustine's Priory Ealing, and Ravenscourt Preparatory School Chiswick.

The annual prize-giving was once again held at St Michael and All Angels Church. The hall was positively fizzing with excited prize winners, smiling families and teachers, all eager to receive their prizes and hear about the winning poems.

Judges Carol Douglas, Susi Stanley-Caroll, and Nicola Kelly were on hand on to greet the winners and congratulate them on their work. The judging panel praised the skill and creative energy which shone through the winning poems, covering many different themes.

The lead judge, poet James Pendle, delighted the audience by creating and reciting a poem ingeniously shaped entirely from lines and imagery from the children’s winning poems.

Poet James Pendle at the prizegiving for the 2024 Chiswick Book Festival Young Poets Competition. Picture: Roger Green

The event was rounded off with energy and fun from London-based poet and author Joshua Seigal. Joshua has written several collections of poetry published by Bloomsbury and is a winner of the Laugh Out Loud Book Award and the People's Book Prize. He has performed all over the world, including at the Dubai Literature Festival and the Edinburgh Book Festival and is an Official Ambassador for National Poetry Day. Joshua read two hilarious poems one from his collection “I don’t like Poetry “and one from his latest poetry book “Who Let the Word out?”

Performance poet Joshua Seigal at the prizegiving for the 2024 Chiswick Book Festival Young Poets Competition. Picture: Roger Green

He encouraged the audience to participate too, and his effervescent, dynamic delivery got everyone all buzzing with the fun, colour and excitement poetry can bring.

The competition is sponsored by ChiswickW4.com and all the winners received a special Chiswick Book Festival certificate from ChiswickW4.com and a goody bag of gorgeous poetry books donated by local bookstore Bookcase.

The 16th Chiswick Book Festival is taking place from 11- 18 September. For tickets, programme details and updates, visit the festival’s web site.