Our Recommended Reads from October 2013

Check out the reviews section of our website for the latest recommended reads - from children's fiction to poetry and classic reads we're sure there is something for everyone. We also welcome your reviews too - email them to 'Reviews' at info@bookapoet.co.uk and we'll let you know when we use it!

Below are the titles we recommended during October 2013. (You can read our reviews and recommendations here.) If you'd like to get your book on our reading list send us an email that includes a press release and we'll get in touch!

‘The Hex Factor: Dark Tide’ By Harriet Goodwin Published by Stripes Publishing
‘The Reindeer Girl’ By Holly Webb Published by Stripes Publishing
‘Make a Picture Sticker Book: Monsters’ Published by Usborne
‘The Usborne Monsters Colouring and Activity Book’ Published by Usborne
‘It Can’t Be True!’ Published by Dorling Kindersley
‘Dinosaurology: The Search for the Lost World’ By Raleigh Rimes Published by Templar Publishing
‘Pigeon Pie’ By Debbie Singleton Illustrated by Kristyna Litten Published by Oxford University Press
‘The Lion and the Mouse’ By Nahta Noj Published by Templar Publishing
‘Briar Rose’ By Jana Oliver Published by Macmillan Children’s Books
‘Dinosaur Cove: Stampede of the Giant Reptiles’ By Rex Stone and Mike Spoor
Published by Oxford University Press
‘Poems to Learn by Heart’ By Ana Sampson Published by Michael O’Mara Books
‘The River Singers’ By Tom Moorhouse Published by Oxford University Press
‘The Ghastly McNastys: The Lost Treasure of Little Snoring’ By Lyn Gardner
Illustrated by Ros Asquith Published by Piccadilly Press
‘The Knowledge Encyclopedia’ By Dorling Kindersley Books
‘Rendezvous in Russia’ By Lauren St John Published by Orion Books
‘Butterfly Grave’ By Anne Cassidy Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
‘The Lady of Shalott’ By Alfred, Lord Tennyson Illustrated by Charles Keep
Published by Oxford University Press
‘The Truth That’s In Me’ By Julie Berry Published by Templar Publishing
‘Spooky Winnie’ By Laura Owen and Korky Paul Published by Oxford University Press
‘Because It Is My Blood’ By Gabrielle Zevin Published by Macmillan Children’s Books
‘Sketcher’ By Roland Watson Grant Published by Alma Books
‘The Haunted’ By William Hussey Published by Oxford University Press
‘Resist’ By Sarah Crossan Published by Bloomsbury
‘Young Knights – Pendragon’ By Julia Golding Published by Oxford University Press

 

November's recommended reads will start to appear on the website from this week. A selection of reviews will be published here too, as well as on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/BookaPoet) and links from our Twitter account (@bookapoet).

Shakespeare Week: Call for Proposals

In partnership with Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire libraries would like to commission two new performances inspired by Shakespeare (one for adults and one for children) to take place in Warwickshire libraries in 2014. 

Deadline for submissions: Friday 8th November 2013. 

For more information, see https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mx3791u2rygbim3/AFn_OUf0L3.

You can find out more about Shakespeare Week here.

Get on air with Verb New Voices - call for poets!

Do you have something to say? Can you say it in verse – blank or free? Verb New Voices is looking for three talented artists (two between 18-30 and one of any age) from the north of England to create and perform a piece of new work for The Verb on Radio 3. The project – created by Arts Council England and supported by the BBC and organisations across the North, including New Writing North – aims to generate vibrant new writing that reflects something unique about Northern culture.

All you have to do to apply is write a statement of why you want to take part in the project, a professional biography and an outline of the piece you want to perform. Then record yourself – a mobile phone video uploaded to Youtube or Vimeo is fine – performing any piece of work (it doesn’t have to be the piece you want to develop).

Selected artists will receive a bursary of £2,500 and a package of in-kind support that includes professional development, working with voice coaches and a fully-funded place on an Arvon residential creative writing course. Deadline for entries: Friday 13th December 2013. 

To find out more or to enter, click here.

London & Oxford Launches Micheal O’Siadhail’s Collected Poems

Collected Poems is a substantial retrospective covering almost 40 years of work. It draws on thirteen books of poetry by Micheal O’Siadhail, and includes a CD of him reading a selection of the poems.

In his foreword, Micheal O’Siadhail writes about the individual books that make up his Collected, drawing out common themes and relating the books to the various stages in his life at which they were written.
“Collected poems are a kind of retrospective symphony. There was no grand plan. Different phases of growth, the various exigencies in the theatre of living call up the movements.” - Micheal O’Siadhail, Foreword to his Collected Poem.
 
Micheal O’Siadhail is one of Ireland’s leading poets. Formerly a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin and a professor at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, he has been a full-time writer since 1987. He has published thirteen books of poetry, the last nine from Bloodaxe, including Hail! Madam Jazz: New and Selected Poems (1992), Our Double Time (1998), Poems 1975-1995 (1999), The Gossamer Wall: poems in witness to the Holocaust (2002), Love Life (2005), Globe (2007) and Tongues (2010). He won the Marten Toonder Prize for Literature in 1998. He has given poetry readings and broadcast extensively in Ireland, Britain, continental Europe, North America and Japan. He lives in Dublin.

Collected Poems by Micheal O’Siadhail is published by Bloodaxe Books, price £20 (paper) and £30 (cased). With free audio CD of poems read by Micheal O'Siadhail.

For further information on Micheal O’Siadhail, please visit http://osiadhail.com/

At the Poetry Cafe Event - Over the Rainbow

Benjamin Myers wins Gordon Burn Prize

Benjamin Myers
 was named winner of the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize for his book Pig Iron (Bluemoose Books) at a special event at Durham Book Festival last night Saturday 19th October. Durham-born Myers will receive a £5,000 award and the opportunity to undertake a three-month writing retreat at Burn’s cottage in Berwickshire.

 

There was strong competition for the award this year, with an impressive shortlist of unusual, challenging work. However, the judging panel, comprising novelist David Peace, journalist Deborah Orr, and broadcaster and author Mark Lawson, picked Myers as the author who best represented the fearless, interrogative spirit of Burn’s writing.

Judge Deborah Orr said: “In Pig Iron, Benjamin Myers’s most recent novel, I think we have alighted on a work that captures the spirit of the Gordon Burn Prize perfectly. Which is good. This being the inaugural award, it was very important for us to start as we mean to go on.

In Pig Iron, Myers’ protagonist, the traveller, John-John, tries to escape the brutal legacy of his bare-knuckle fighting father by abandoning the travelling way of life. His new job as an ice cream man and settled life on the edge of a Northern town are meant to offer him freedom. Instead he finds prejudice, parole officers and local gangs.

The Gordon Burn Prize, run in partnership by New Writing North, Faber and Faber, and the Gordon Burn Trust, was conceived to pay tribute to the literary legacy of the late author. An incisive, undaunted writer, Newcastle-born Burn was a literary polymath, writing widely and well on a range of subjects from George Best to Peter Sutcliffe. The Gordon Burn Prize seeks to recognise writers whose work follows in his footsteps: authors whose novels enter history to interrogate the past, and non-fiction writers brave enough to recast characters to create a new and vivid reality.

For more information about Gordon Burn, please visit www.gordonburntrust.com.

For more information about Benjamin Myers, please visit www.benmyers.com

Source: New Writing North Press Release

New Poetry Review Out Now!

The Poetry Society's latest edition of Poetry Review, edited by Maurice Riordan, explores Seamus Heaney's idea of the omphalos, a place that is central to a poet's imaginative world, in essays by Colette Bryce and Ian Duhig. In 'Face to Face' Patrick Crotty offers an in-depth interview with Michael Longley, and Richard Gwyn writes on Cavafy. New poems by Matthew Dickman, Hugo Williams, Ruby Robinson, Leontia Flynn, Matthew Sweeney, Eve Grubin, Kate Potts, and many, many more. The issue includes a warm tribute to Seamus Heaney.

Edited by Maurice Riordan, the latest issue of Poetry Review explores Seamus Heaney's idea of the omphalos, a place that is central to a poet's imaginative world, in essays by Colette Bryce and Ian Duhig. In 'Face to Face' Patrick Crotty offers an in-depth interview with Michael Longley, and Richard Gwyn writes on Cavafy. New poems by Matthew Dickman, Hugo Williams, Ruby Robinson, Leontia Flynn, Matthew Sweeney, Eve Grubin, Kate Potts, and many, many more. The issue includes a warm tribute to Seamus Heaney, who died on 30 August. Full contents list and downloadable pdfs here.

Itchy Fingers Textiles Annual Exhibition titled 'Narrative Threads'

Itchy Fingers Textiles will be holding their next exciting exhibition of work at Swansea Grand Theatre from Tuesday 22nd October to 8th November. There will be a wide variety of textile pieces including 3D items on view. 

Itchy Fingers Textiles have confirmed that 3 pieces have been inspired by poetry - 'If', 'When I am Old' and 'Cento' - 'Cento' by Alison Chisholm was commissioned by the BBC in December 2012. Artist Lesley Thomas has created amazing pieces of art based on Alison's piece of work.

This year Itchy Fingers Textiles installation piece will be a diverse selection of covered books which will be sold in support of Penplas Family Centre Reading Scheme. 

Itchy Fingers Textiles hope to have images of all 84 pieces on their website, www.itchyfingersart.webs.com from the 24th October onwards.

Getting Your Poetry Published by the Poetry Book Society

It’s always been quite hard for poets to get their work taken on because poetry doesn’t on the whole have a huge market. For this reason poetry publishing in the UK has been publicly subsidised by the Arts Council for a number of years.

Most poetry lists are pretty small. They tend to be either poetry imprints in large publishing houses, such as the Jonathan Cape poetry list at Random House or the Picador list at Macmillan, long-established independents such as Faber, and a number of Arts Council funded publishers including larger houses such as Bloodaxe and Carcanet, smaller independent ones such as Flambard, Arc and Anvil, and pamphlet publishers such as Rack Press and Knives Forks and Spoons Press.

Publishers always have to be cautious about what they take on and there are good reasons for this. Poetry is not usually given much space in bookshops and in most of them it is difficult to find poetry sections that go much beyond some bestselling backlist and a few new volumes. Publishers have to work hard to launch new poets and they are therefore very selective about who they take on.

The good news though is that there is a lot you can do to kick-start your own career as a poet and to get your work out there in front of the public. This has changed radically over the years, with more and more readings, the proliferation of poetry magazines, self-publishing and the web all offering opportunities.

Thanks to David at the Poetry Book Society for giving us permission to use the introductory text from the Poetry Book Society website. You can read the full article here.

Poetry Competitions Oct-Dec 2013

Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2013
Closing Date: 21/10/2013
Info: Up to 45 lines
Judges: Deryn Rees-Jones & George Szirtes.
Prizes: 1st £2,500, 2nd £500, 3rd £250, 20 prizes of £20 each - plus a spring 2014 coffee-house-poetry season-ticket, a prize-winners' coffee-house poetry reading with Deryn Rees-Jones & George Szirtes for prize-winning poets.
Entry Fee: £5/ 6 Euros/ $8 per poem
See full entry details at www.coffeehousepoetry.org/prizes/ 
By Post: Troubadour International Poetry Prize, Coffee-House Poetry, PO Box 16210, LONDON W4 1ZP.
By E-mail: CoffPoetry@aol.com

National Poetry Competition 2013
Closing Date: 31st October 2013
Prizes: First Prize: £5000, Second Prize: £2000, Third Prize: £1000, Seven Commendations: £100. The top-three winning poems will be published in Poetry Review. The winner is also invited to read at the Ledbury Poetry Festival in July 2014. Up to 150 entrants will also be offered a discount on selected activities from the Poetry School. Winning and commended poems will be published on the Poetry Society website when the competition prizes are announced in spring 2014.
Judges: The judges of the 2013 National Poetry Competition are Julia Copus, Matthew Sweeney and Jane Yeh.
The National Poetry Competition is an award for individual poems that are previously unpublished.
Entry Fee: £6 for first entry, £3.50 for subsequent entries
Postal Entries: National Poetry Competition, The Poetry Society,22 Betterton Street, London, WC2H 9BX, UK
Enter online: http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/competitions/npc/

What's your Place?
Closing Date: 31st December 2013
Prize: £100 plus publication in our online magazine. Organised by Holland Park Press.
Theme: a poem about a neighbourhood that's important to you.
Entry Fee: £0
More information is available from http://www.hollandparkpress.co.uk/magazine_detail.php?magazine_id=255&language=English

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - Tenth Author Announced ...

Eleven Doctors. Eleven months. Eleven authors. Eleven stories.
A year long celebration for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who!

‘The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage’
By Derek Landy
Published by Puffin, EBook, £1.99
Suitable for readers aged 9+

Award-winning Derek Landy has been annouced as the author of the tenth and penultimate short story in Puffin Books' e-range celebrating Doctor Who's 50th anniversary.  


Doctor Who is the longest running sci-fi TV show in the world and celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2013. To celebrate, Puffin – in partnership with BBC Worldwide – is publishing an exclusive series of eleven ebook short stories each based on one of the Eleven Doctors, priced at £1.99 and released on the 23rd January to November 2013. Each story is written by a different author, bringing together some of the most exciting names in children’s fiction, from commercial blockbusters to literary award-winners. These authors will each bring their own interpretation and re-imagining of their chosen Doctor to create a unique Doctor Who adventure in their own inimitable style.

Following on from short stories by Eoin Colfer, Michael Scott, Marcus Sedgwick, Philip Reeve, Patrick Ness, Richelle Mead, Malorie Blackman, Alex Scarrow and Charlie Higson, Derek Landy has written the tenth adventure in the series, based on the Tenth Doctor played by David Tennant.  

Landy, who has penned the Skulduggery Pleasant series of children's books, commented:
"I can proudly say that I was one of those kids who hid behind the sofa while experiencing Doctor Who - one doesn't "watch" Doctor Who, one experiences it - and that crazy blend of science-fiction and adventure and horror has made me the writer I am today.

I owe the character, in whatever incarnation, an enormous debt of gratitude, so when I was offered the chance to write a Tenth Doctor adventure my answer was always going to be "yes". The Tenth Doctor, with his love of the spoken word, was practically tailor-made for me, and there is no part of this story that I did not write with the utmost joy. It all started with "What if the Doctor met the Famous Five?" and went on from there ..."

The author and title of the series' final instalment, to feature the Eleventh Doctor, will be announced on Tuesday 5th November. It will be published on Thursday 21st November alongside a paperback anthology of all 11 stories - to be called Eleven Doctors, Eleven Stories and which can be pre-ordered here - plus an audio collection. - See more at: http://www.feedhammer.co.uk/feed-item-details.php?id=36490#sthash.LyzZgQZ7.dpuf

The author and title of the series' final instalment, to feature the Eleventh Doctor, will be announced on Tuesday 5th November. It will be published on Thursday 21st November alongside a paperback anthology of all 11 stories - to be called Eleven Doctors, Eleven Stories and which can be pre-ordered here - plus an audio collection

Synposis: When the TARDIS lands on a planet that looks identical to Earth, the Tenth Doctor and Martha are amazed to find it packed with fictional characters from her childhood. But who has the power to create an entire world out of books and why? The Doctor and Martha must solve the mystery before their story ends!

About Derek Landy

Before writing his children's story about a sharply-dressed skeleton detective, Derek Landy wrote the screenplays for a zombie movie and a murderous thriller in which everybody dies. 

As a black belt in Kenpo Karate he has taught countless children how to defend themselves, in the hopes of building his own private munchkin army. He firmly believes that they await his call to strike against his enemies (he doesn't actually have any enemies, but he's assuming they'll show up, sooner or later). 

Derek lives on the outskirts of Dublin, and the reason he writes his own biography blurb is so that he can finally refer to himself in the third person without looking pompous or insane.

The author and title of the series' final instalment, to feature the Eleventh Doctor, will be announced on Tuesday 5th November. It will be published on Thursday 21st November alongside a paperback anthology of all 11 stories - to be called Eleven Doctors, Eleven Stories and which can be pre-ordered here - plus an audio collection. - See more at: http://www.feedhammer.co.uk/feed-item-details.php?id=36490#sthash.LyzZgQZ7.dpuf

 

‘Poems to Learn by Heart’ By Ana Sampson - Book Review

‘Poems to Learn by Heart’
By Ana Sampson
Published by Michael O’Mara Books
RRP £12.99 (hardback)
ISBN 9781782431459

'Paths of glory', 'Theirs not to reason why', 'When you are old and grey and full of sleep', 'A handful of dust', 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day' - these and many others are famous lines of poetry that often occur in everyday speech. But do you know the rest of the verse, or even the rest of the poem? An anthology to warm the coldest heart or charm the least romantic soul, this is a collection of poems (or in some cases, extracts) that are not only memorable, but lend themselves to being learned by heart.

This is the perfect book for anyone with even the vaguest interest in poetry, providing a wonderful opportunity to revisit those much-loved lines remembered from earlier days.

Highly recommended for readers of all ages

You can purchase the book here.

Angela Readman wins Mslexia poetry competition

Congratulations to Angela Readman who won the 2013 Mslexia poetry competition, judged by Kathleen Jamie, with her poem The Book of Tides. Angela was also shortlisted for The Asham Award, leading to her short story Birds Without Wings being published recently in The Asham Award winners anthology, Once Upon a Time There Was a Traveller.

1st Prize: The Book of Tides by Angela Readman 2nd Prize: Rattus Rattus by Mel Pryor 3rd Prize: The guide loses one of his group in Martinique by Caroline Price

 

And the runners-up: Bridget Auchmuty, Sharon Black, Jemma Borg, Maureen Boyle, Elizabeth Burns, Fiona Cartwright, Shirley A Cook (formerly Elmokadem), Barbara Cumbers, Kerry Darbishire, Yael Geva, Tess Jolly, RE Matthews, Jacqueline Mezec, Abigail Morley, Brigid Murray, Lesley Saunders and Jennifer Varney.

For further information please visit Mslexia's website.

Q&A with Andy Serkis About 'The Bone Season' fantasy novel by Samantha Shannon

Andy Serkis, whose Imaginarium Studios are currently in the process of adapting 'The Bone Season' for the big screen - the first novel in this phenomenal new seven-part fantasy series, which flung 22-year-old Samantha Shannon into the spotlight when she was hailed as 'the next J K Rowling' by the international press. 

'We all immediately saw its potential as a fantastic feature film,' Serkis said of The Bone Season. 'She’s very warm and a passionate storyteller - dedicated beyond belief. We’re working very closely with her on all aspects of bringing the world of the book to the screen. We’ve been involving her with all the early concept artwork that we’re beginning to put together. Obviously it’s her world so we want to make sure we bring it to life in the way that she wants.'


What is it about The Bone Season that compelled you to include it in The Imaginarium Studio's very first slate of films?
 
We first came across the manuscript at the London Book Fair and immediately fell in love with the scope, the scale and the exceptional detail of the world Samantha had created. It’s a really compelling story with such a great central character – we all immediately saw its potential as a fantastic feature film.

Have you met Samantha Shannon and how involved will she be in the film's production?

Yes of course – she’s a delightful, incredibly intelligent person. She’s very warm and a passionate storyteller- dedicated beyond belief. We’re working very closely with her on all aspects of bringing the world of the book to the screen. We’ve been involving her with all the early concept artwork that we’re beginning to put together. Obviously it’s her world so we want to make sure we bring it to life in the way that she wants.

Can you tell us about how the creative process for adapting a story like The Bone Season begins?

It begins with knowing the story you want to tell. There are thousands of stories contained within the world that Samantha has created - we have to be very disciplined about opening up the world in a way that will lead us on to further investigation in the rest of the series. We need to find the emotional heart of the story; the relationships; the tension; the suspense and the drive, and of course working closely with Samantha is going to make it much easier.

At this very early stage it’s about finding the right writer and the right approach to telling the story. Hand in hand with developing the screenplay it’s also about developing the visual world and bringing that to life, finding the right visual effects team who understand Samantha’s concepts.

You have been part of bringing some of the world's most famous and well-loved fantasy worlds to contemporary audiences. Which of your experiences across film, TV, stage and video games would you say has been most helpful in preparing you to produce The Bone Season?

It would be impossible to single out any one single experience, it’s an accumulation of all my experiences to date, but obviously having worked on The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s extraordinary world with Peter Jackson is incredibly useful. Peter basically gave me the opportunity to work on a lot of extraordinary characters in a lot of extraordinary worlds and has opened up my eyes to a genre that I knew very little about before.

Will performance capture will come mostly into play when portraying Shannon's Rephaim race on screen in The Bone Season? Can you give us any insight into how you'd like these characters to appear?

We’re in very early stages of designing how we want to portray these characters, and are exploring a variety of avenues to bring these characters to life. We’re certainly not tied to any one production technique at this early stage.


Animal Farm is the other film on your inaugural slate. What can you tell us about this project?

We’re extraordinarily excited about Animal Farm. We have been working on the methodology this year, the development of the characters and the story. We’re working with a wonderful character designer and very pleased with how the animals are developing as visual characters. In terms of story, we’re remaining very truthful to the original book however we are relocating the setting as if Orwell were writing in the present day - we’ve been working very closely with the Orwell estate on this.

Your talents are very varied! If you could only do one thing for the rest of your career, which would you choose (stage/TV/film/video game roles, voice roles, director or producer)?

Mountain Climber!

'The Bone Season'
By Samantha Shannon
Published by Bloomsbury
RRP £12.99 (hardback)
ISBN 9781408836422

Even a dreamer can start a revolution.

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people’s minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.

It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.

The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine and also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

Top of the class: World’s largest poetry competition celebrates winners National Poetry Day 3rd October 2013

‘The most striking aspect of Foyle Young Poets of the Year is the excellence of the entries; the other conspicuous quality is its massive global appeal. Foyle Young Poets has become a focus for poetic enterprise, achievement and daring. World poetry, you might say, begins here.’

Fifteen world-class young poets are celebrated this month with the announcement of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award on National Poetry Day, Thursday 3rd October 2013; a poetry competition which has broken all the records to become the most popular in the world. The winners have been selected by acclaimed poets Hannah Lowe and David Morley from a record-breaking number of entries; with 7,478 young poets (aged 11-17) entering from the four corners of the world – a staggering 75 countries in total. The competition drew entries from Belgium to Barbados and Vietnam to Venezuela, and this year’s lucky winners (the 15 Top Winners and 85 Commended poets) came from as far as Abuja, Nigeria and Kuala Lumpa, Malaysia. With such fierce global competition to be selected by the judges as one of the top 100 (15 Overall Winners and 85 Commended) is an extremely impressive achievement.

Since it began 16 years ago, the Award has kick-started the career of some of today’s most exciting new voices, including the celebrated poets Caroline Bird and Helen Mort (whose collection Division Street was published this year by Random House imprint Chatto & Windus). The Award represents a career-changing achievement for many, and it is now firmly established as the key award for young poets. The phrase ‘Former Foyle Young Poet’ is now commonly found in professional biographies as alumni continue to make their mark on the wider literary world, appearing on bookshelves and at festivals the world over.

The quality this year was, as ever, of world-class standard. Judge Hannah Lowe commented: “The 2013 Foyle entries indicate that young people's poetry is at a very exciting point and full of confidence. Notable in particular was the range of strong and distinct voices, the use of wit and the occasional quirkiness. I was so impressed by the breadth of subject matter and the often mature stances young poets take. The elegiac poems were powerful, as were many of those about relationships - of friendship, romance and family.”

The 100 winning poets will attend a prize giving ceremony at Royal Festival Hall in London on Thursday 3rd October (National Poetry Day) where they will meet judges Hannah Lowe and David Morley. The Top 15 Foyle Young Poets of the Year will attend a residential writing week at the Hurst Arvon Centre in Shropshire or receive a poet visit to their school (age dependent). All 100 winning poets will receive book prizes and become Youth Members of the Poetry Society, the UK’s leading poetry organisation.

Overall Winners

Magnus Dixon, 12, Aberdeenshire
Lamorna Tregenza Reid, 13, Cornwall
Laura Harray, 13, London
Jennifer Burville-Riley, 14, Sevenoaks
Caroline Harris, 16, California
Esme Partridge, 16, Oxford
Emma Lister, 16, Devon
Phoebe Stuckes, 17, Somerset
Imogen Cassels, 17, Sheffield
Grace Campbell, 17, Edinburgh
Jessica Walker, 17, Cumbria
Ila Colley, 17, Cumbria
Catriona Bolt, 17, Bury St. Edmunds
Ian Burnette, 17, South Carolina
Dominic Hand, 18, Oxford

Themes such as rites of passage and the experience of modern urban life, written with maturity and wisdom beyond these young poets’ years, feature across many of the poems; well demonstrated in 17 year old Phoebe Stuckes’ brilliant ‘Daughters’:

Let us vacate these badly lit odd little towns
Let us want none of what anchored our mothers
Let us never evolve to be good or beautiful
Let us spit and snarl and rattle the hatches
Let us never be conquered
Let us no longer keep keys in our knuckles
Let us run into the streets hungry, fervent, ablaze.

You
Are a mighty thing
A captive animal, woken with a taste for blood.
Feed it,

You Amazon, you Gloria, you Swiss army knife of a woman.

and found in 17 year old Ian Burnette’s tender and melancholic portrait of a young woman in
‘Dutch Baby’:

In the bakery, my girl
grips a pregnancy test

like a pistol in her pocket.
The baker hands her

the key to the restroom
and leaves. In the back

there’s a small window
where he watches

men and women and
children—I don’t mind,

I’ve learned I can’t
protect anyone by now.

But many of the poems are also alive with the wonder of childhood, exquisitely celebrated, as in 12 year old Magnus Dixon’s love poem to sailing ‘I am..’ about a boy ‘who pretends land is sea, school is a ship sailing into the frozen north and that the wind whispers praise’. Fittingly, this year’s theme of National Poetry Day is ‘Water’ and several poems explore our relationship with the sea, seen also in Grace Campbell’s ‘Tidal’ which has the unforgettable line: ‘I stood like a footnote/to the sea’;

across the sea the same sound will recall 
the surge of the north; a skirt of rain-washed rock
A story ceaselessly uttering itself; that
finds you again on the earth’s other curve
water-born sons and daughters of the world.

All of the winning fifteen poems are alive with the music of beautifully crafted words and rhythm, and bring traditional poetry forms (such as quatrains ) vividly to life “young poets were finding internal rhythms and cadences in their writing, and to see the use of traditional forms made fresh through subject matter” says Lowe.

You can read the winning entries in full here.

Our Recommended Reads from September 2013

Check out the reviews section of our website for the latest recommended reads - from children's fiction to poetry and classic reads we're sure there is something for everyone. We also welcome your reviews too - email them to 'Reviews' at info@bookapoet.co.uk and we'll let you know when we use it!

Below are the titles we recommended during September 2013. (You can read our reviews and recommendations here.) If you'd like to get your book on our reading list send us an email that includes a press release and we'll get in touch!

‘The Kills’ By Richard House Published by Picador

‘Lego Star Wars Brickmaster: Battle for the Stolen Crystals’ Published by Dorling Kindersley

‘Lifting The Piano With One Hand’ By Gaia Holmes Published by Comma Press
‘Too Small for my Big Bed’ By Amber Stewart and Layn Marlow 

                                                                 Published by Oxford University Press
‘As Far As I Know’ By Roger McGough Published by Penguin Books
‘Traditional Tales Story Games: Oxford Reading Tree - Practise Your Phonics’
                                                                 By Oxford University Press
‘The Roman Mysteries: Trimalchio’s Feast and Other Mini Mysteries’ By Caroline Lawrence
                                                                 Published by Orion Books
‘Boris the Bait Digger’ By Brian Lovelidge Published by Barny Books
‘Stinky and Jinks: My Hamster is a Spy’ By Dave Love Published by Templar Publishing
‘We’re Having A Party’ By Helen Cresswell, Anne Fine, Jan Mark, Hilary McKay, Susan Price, Robert Swindells and Jacqueline Wilson Illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark
                                                                Published by Piccadilly Press
‘Winnie’s Pirate Adventure’ By Valerie Thomas & Korky Paul 

                                                            Published by Oxford University Press
‘Saving Silence’ By Gina Blaxhill Published by Macmillan Children’s Books
‘Royal Doll’s House Sticker Book’ Published by Usborne
‘Mondays At Monster School’ By Ruth Louise Symes Published by Orion Books
‘The Highwayman’ By Alfred Noyes Published by Oxford University Press
‘The Littlest Bird’ By Gareth Edwards and Elina Ellis Published by Piccadilly Press
‘Just So Stories’ By Rudyard Kipling Illustrated by Robert Ingpen 

October's recommended reads will start to appear on the website from this week. A selection of reviews will be published here too, as well as on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/BookaPoet) and links from our Twitter account (@bookapoet).