Portsmouth pupil Lucy earns top-three spot in international poetry competition
Portsmouth Grammar School (PGS) pupil Lucy Albuery was whisked off to the capital to an awards ceremony, where she was surrounded by armed forces heroes.
It came after the 14-year-old scored a coveted top-three spot in a Never Such Innocence (NSI) First World War centenary poetry competition, beating more than 6,000 applicants in the process.
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Hide AdThe contest drew talent not only from the UK, but also collected entries from dozens of other nations – including Greece, Malaysia, New Zealand, France, Canada, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda and the USA.
And after careful NSI judging, Lucy, who is in Year 9, was awarded for her talents at the Guards Chapel at the Wellington Barracks, in London, on Thursday afternoon.
Reflecting on the experience, she said: ‘It was a really fun day and it was brilliant to have the chance to meet so many special people.
‘I remember getting the letter to say how well I’d done in the competition – I hadn’t entered thinking I’d even come close to winning.
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Hide Ad‘But to be recognised from so many entries was just a brilliant feeling.’
Entitled Stones, Lucy’s poem was centric on remembrance, using the voice of a long-dead First World War soldier to question what it means in a modern society.
Lucy said: ‘I was inspired to write it after a school trip to Belgium – we saw so many cemeteries.
‘Countless people died in the First World War and it’s so important we remember them – I wanted to do this in an unusual way, with the poem sounding as if it was coming straight from a soldier’s voice.’
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Hide AdAs she now prepares to sport her award – a special badge – on her school blazer, Lucy’s family and teachers have rallied behind her efforts.
Head of history and politics, Simon Lemieux, said PGS is ‘extremely proud’.
Lucy’s dad, Gary, dubbed her achievement ‘amazing’.
Lucy’s poem, Stones
You’ll say you’ll remember,
And I’ll trust you that you’ll try,
As you stand in Cathedrals,
Wearing pathetic, paper flowers.
You’ll remember a few numbers,
Maybe a few names
Or just those graves you once saw on a school trip.
But for all you do to not let us fade away You can’t bring yourself to apprehend, that We’re
already gone.
Never another noise will shake us,
Yet through the silence, blares
Rows and rows of what we became:
White rectangles, tattooed
With some numbers and a name.
A name that you claim to enshrine,
And numbers you pretend to have meaning to you.
But they’re not what matters.
Because all that did has withered,
Into the cold soil we sleep.
You don’t know who I was,
So how do you insist you remember
What you never knew?
I am love
I am fear
I am all that I’ve lost
And all the scars that defined me,
All I gave
and all I took.
I am hope
I am loss
All the tears that escaped.
I am what I showed the world
And all I hid from it, too.
All I am you will never know
By a name and some dates.
You don’t remember me.
You remember a stone.