On Thursday 5th October, the school celebrated National Poetry Day with an interform Haiku competition, on this year’s theme of ‘Refuge’.
Students discussed the concept of refuge and debated the different forms it might take, from refuge in a particular place to refuge in a hobby.
Below are two examples of haikus written for the competition:
A small wooden nest
Pink nose twitching, tiny ears
A harvest mouse sleeps
(9PAK)
In a secret place
Hiding from reality
Sheltered from the truth
(8CJR)
The event was also an opportunity for our Poet Laureates (Matilda, Grace, Eva, and Nico) to write their first poems of the year to mark the occasion. These students hold the prestigious role for the academic year, after winning last year’s Peter Hendry Poetry Competition. Grace said: “We had a great time launching this haiku competition. Poetry is an opportunity to write inventively and personally – the haiku form is the perfect vehicle for concise creative expressions. We are looking forward to writing more poems over the course of the academic year to mark important events like today.”
Matilda and Grace’s poems are below:
Sunlight Solace
My mind comes alive in the lowlight
The Sun dissipates my thoughts
illuminates, examines, dismisses
It lifts the weight from me
saturates, brightens, reasons.
Ignores
The warmth of dusk stains your face
lifts, hugs, loves
There is nostalgia in your cheeks
and reminiscence in your teeth
Words unspoken adorn you.
They adore you
Streetlights leaking under blinds
Tears slipping under eyelids
Twilight is iced,
crisp white snow piled up at the door
You feel the stasis of the stars.
Neons slice through midnight
The sheen of plastic signs
illuminated from beneath
Electric,
acid blue
You think it’s time to go.
Now the glitter rinses off –
tap runs cold
ribs cave in.
Thoughts run loose into the night
whipped by the wind
My body crumples under the weight,
pleated,
origami on the floor.
I crawl into the darkness.
I wait for the Sun again.
Matilda (U6HHM)
Refuge
Safety, soft hands on your own,
something to hold, something to have.
So when you have
nothing outside the material comforts of a
soft room scattered with things
Meant to Clean Up
Just things… listless
Just still air and muffled silence
that you can hear.
So when you have
nothing
You find
something
In other people’s stories,
A way to breathe out
without letting the thoughts in
and stop
-Breathe-
For a journey you won’t have to suffer.
To let your own breath catch
with impermanence
Drip
and dissolve into the actions of others.
We’re looking for pearls like permanent bubbles
of notes that strike a chord
in us
Twist a knot that’s there
for unsaid reasons
Remaining unsaid
Unbroken into the soft, muffled silence.
Grace (U6HHM)