What a wonderful effort from all entrants. Local Author and Poet Ralph Rochester was our expert Judge. “It has been great fun reading the many interesting and amusing verses about the Royal Wedding that have been submitted to the Lympstone Poetry Competition 2011. Judges of competitions, when they give their judgements, usually say how very, very, very difficult it has been and so on. But I found it easy!”
Ralph found the standard very high and gave praise to the winners for the use of rhyme and humour. And to the losers Ralph said “I would like to say to all the young poets who have not won prizes that this doesn’t mean that you did not write good poems. There were lots more excellent poems so whatever you do don’t give up writing!”
For a full account of Ralph’s deliberations click Here
For a list of winners click Here
To see all the entries – with entrants names click on the relevant section :-
Ralph Rochester is the author of Henry Hogge’s The Pig Poets (1995) , For Love of Williamina, The Man Who Had Frogs Inside Him (1995) for which he won The Independent children’s story of the year prize in 1995 and three volumes of verse: The Turkey and the Baby (2003), The Climbing Boy (2004) and The Uncanny Granny (2005). He is also the winner of the 2001 David St John Trust prize for non-fiction and twice winner of the Larkhill Green Literary Prize (Literary Review). He contributes regularly to the New Statesman, The Spectator and the Literary Review. Ralph lives in Lympstone, Devon and is married with four children and owns a boat.
This competition has been sponsored by www.ukbestbooks.co.uk
