Poetry, Prizes & Performance.

Today I'm looking through the roughs of my next poetry book A Kid in My Class, and making some final tweaks before it goes off to the printers. Can August ’18 come around soon enough…?

Here's a sneak preview...

Over the summer, I had the pleasure of reading though all the entries to The Betjeman Poetry Prize (a prize for young poets aged 10-13). It was a difficult job, but also extremely enjoyable to be judging the winning entries. The award ceremony took place in September at St Pancras Station, Kings Cross by the John Betjeman statue. Chris Riddell, the co - judge, illustrated live whilst the six finalists read their poems out.

Well done to everyone who entered, especially the six finalists and the winning poet - Amineh Abou Kerech, for her stunning poem Lament for Syria.

In October, I toured with The Children’s Bookshow and performed for pupils at the gorgeous King’s Hall theatre in Ilkley, Yorkshire. I carried out poetry workshops in a number of schools, both in Yorkshire itself and in Bristol. I always enjoy visiting classes to write and read poetry with them. It’s particularly pleasing when I see they’ve been studying my poems in advance of my visit. One such school (Christ the King RC Primary School in Bristol) , showed me their marvellous display of poems they'd written that were based on my collection The Language of Cat. The quality of their poetry was outstanding!