Polyglot Poetry Prize 2022

In celebration of National Poetry Day on Thursday 6th October and the School’s second successful International Languages Week, the English and MFL Departments have teamed up to encourage students to explore the ways in which different languages offer unique perspectives, expressions and ideas.

The Leighton Park Polyglot Poetry Prize, inspired by the work of poets, such as Paul van Ostaijen, Guillaume Apollinnaire, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Sujata Bhatt, invites students to enter multilingual poems, this year on the theme of ‘sustainability’, for one of three categories; junior individual entry, senior individual entry or House collective entry. In its inaugural year, the prize criteria stated that ‘entries should include no less than three different languages, two of which are taught at Leighton Park’, and encouraged the use of poetic devices, such as melody, tonality and rhythm.

On the esteemed judging panel was: children’s author, Margaret Bateson-Hill; Old Leightonian and former Head Boy (2021), Kit King; Old Leightonian and University of Oxford student, Millie Dean-Lewis; and Toby Garfitt, Professor of French at the University of Oxford.

Before taking to the stage to deliver their polyglot poems in Collect on Friday 7^th October, the four Houses had the opportunity to work with Margaret. The international author has published novels in Russian (Masha and the Firebird) and Chinese (Lao Lao of Dragon Mountain), and takes inspiration from living Brixton, which she describes as “one of the cross-roads of our world where many cultures and peoples meet and an ideal place from which to travel into the world of story.” After taking part in several vocal warm-up exercises with Margaret, the author was able to offer students constructive feedback as they practiced their House performance pieces.

Following Cadbury’s performance later that morning, set to the backdrop of emotive images and music composed by Upper Sixth student, Finn, House Clerk, Zoe Macpherson, enthused “A huge congratulations! Well done to everyone who took part in the performance this morning in Collect, the practices before and the creative writing of the poem. I am very impressed with the efforts shown, fingers crossed for when we find out the results on Monday. #PROUDTOBECADBURY”

With the adjudication process taking place over the weekend, results were announced in Monday’s Collect. A number of entries were received from students and staff. Despite being disqualified in their House performance due to the strict criteria that required a student from each year group to be present on stage, Fox House, were announced as the overall winners of the competition. In joint second were Cadbury and Tubman, followed closely by Bentsi-Enchill in third place.

Fox House student, Albie in the Upper Sixth, applauded “This is how we do it. First place in House Poetry is incredible even when we got disqualified, to still bounce back and win it is amazing. Let’s maintain this momentum and carry it into our next House Competition. You should be proud of yourselves, all that were involved. Come on Fox House!”

Awarded first place for their individual entries were Rohan in Year 8 and Livi in Year 10, followed by Charlie (Year 7), Ollie (Year 10) and Seren (Upper Sixth) in second, and Ella (Year 9) in third place.

Judge, Toby Garfitt, reported back “What a wonderful response to this poetic challenge. The theme of sustainability was obviously an excellent choice and the requirement to include a range of languages was not a problem in most cases. The best entries made the use of other languages seem natural. There was a wide range of poetic devices on display; alliteration, variation of register, different kinds of rhyme and some striking typographical arrangement and of course a wide variety of languages from across the world.”

Toby continued, “In the House performances, the aspect of performance itself was something to be taken account of and that was addressed in various creative ways. It’s been great fun to read and watch the various contributions and all those who took part, whether individually or in a House performance, deserve huge credit. I do hope many of you will continue to explore and develop your poetic talents in the future.”

Kit who studies Arabic and Linguistics at SOAS University of London, reflected on stage, “All the entries were incredible. Some of them didn’t quite meet the brief because they only used two languages or English, but even then, they were good poems in their own right. There were some really interesting methods to incorporate languages; individual words in each line or using play on words, so that was really impressive to see. A large number of entries came from the younger years; these were also the ones that I ranked higher! It was really great overall and I’m really impressed with what everyone did.”

Matthew Judd, Head, remarked “It’s wonderful to see students celebrating languages in a creative way outside of lessons.”