CISC Poetry Competition Winners

This year saw an incredible 177 entries across Junior and Senior categories, including our first entries from a CISC special school which was just wonderful. Huge thanks to colleagues and pupils for their hard work and effort – I enjoyed reading every submission and even learned a new word, ‘dokidoki’, which is the sound of a healthy heart and is used to describe physical and emotional excitement and a racing of the heart.

Particularly interesting was the number of poems that reflected upon the experience of living through the pandemic and the challenges and opportunities it presents in the context of our theme of ‘Gifts’.

The competition this year was judged by Tom Collingridge a professional copywriter living in the Netherlands. He has written poetry since he was at school himself (a long time ago), regularly winning prizes and commendations for his poems, for example in The Bridport Prize and (in Dutch) The Dutch National Poetry Competition. In his early years, he attended no less than three of today’s CISC schools. I am enormously grateful to Tom for his time, wisdom and insight in selecting our winners.

You can read the winning entries here.