A BUDDING wordsmith scooped second prize in a national poetry competition.
Freya Wilson, 11, of St Paul's Girls' School, in Brook Green, came second in the nine to 11-year-old category at the Old Possum's Children’s Poetry Competition.
The event is run by Children's Poetry Bookshelf and the British Council and saw school children between seven and 11 invited to submit poems on the theme of 'Home'.
Entries were judged by a prestigious panel of judges including poets Roger McGough and James Carter, Julia Eccleshare, co-director of the centre for literacy in primary education, publisher David Fickling and Caroline Horn, children's news editor of the Bookseller.
Prizes were handed out on December 10 at Drill Hall Theatre, in Central London with Freya scooping £100 in cash.
Mr McGough said: "'Home' proved to be a fruitful subject for this year's crop of young poets and the judges relished those poems in which the child's imagination was let loose.
"Above all, it was a delight to witness very young writers discovering the power and joy of language."
'Home' by Freya Wilson
Your suburban wasteland, where siblings lurk in every corner,
It's framed with coffee mug rings, and memories.
Look!
Here, by the stairs, where you took your first steps as a toddling tot of two;
Look!
There, on the kitchen table. Do you remember daubing your name in garish red paint?
And look! This is where you've sat and dreamed for as long as time goes back.
As you pass the bookshelf and finger tales eternal as God,
And you squabble and scrap over doesn't-matter-now qualms,
Something whispers in the tone of murmurs of leaves,
"You are home."
Snap! The dictionary slams shut.
