A sixth form student asked me yesterday, “How do the House Poetry judges manage to read 167 poems in one afternoon to pick the winners?” Honestly, it’s such an enjoyable evening sat together in a pub debating poetry, reciting them aloud and championing our favourites to win over one another. Yes, Mr Waterman’s huge push to maximise participation in Manor house did present us with the greatest number of poems to read in my time convening the competition. No, beside myself no one judge actually read every single poem – and I only managed that by starting earlier in the week. But, huge participation presented us with a wonderful wealth of poignant poetry to enjoy, and the success of Manor house as champions for the best overall collection proves that participation matters. Although, I will admit that while the winning poems got multiple readings and recitations on their journey to winning the judges’ favour, the stream of Haiku written because “Sir made me write a poem, or else…” didn’t attract the same depth of discussion.

I have to credit Mr Humphries for the idea of using an image as the prompt for this year’s competition. The intention was to divert poets away from works which start by simply defining the word “Freedom” (2024), “Determination” (2023), “Time” etc. And it worked. A simple snap of baby shoes laid on a blanket sent different thinkers in many different directions, from reflections on parenthood and childhood, to the life-cycle of a shoe, to metaphorical journeys, and historical and literary allusions.

It’s hard to say exactly what the judges are looking for in a winning poem. I don’t want to portray them as fickle or unreliably subjective, but they know that poetry is a very subtle art and are open minded to hearing the unique creative voices which such an intelligent community of students always delivers. They do want thoughtful connection with a worthy theme, but nothing -too- worthy. They appreciate consciously crafted language and structure, though beautiful simplicity is also admired. They enjoy being surprised by a unique perspective or novel idea, while insightful resonance with relatable universal truth is likely to capture a wider group.

A few poems referencing GCSE literature texts made us chuckle. One whose title seemed an overt confession to being AI generated actually turned out to be a clever portrayal of the birth and development of AI as if it were a child. Warwick champion and fifth place finished Phoebus did a good job of connecting to that universal resonance which every judge could appreciate. Joshua’s Lenham champion poem and fourth place winner expressed a much more uniquely personal perspective whose honesty really struck us. Greyhound champion Shaun demonstrated how less can be more with the shortest of the champion poems which really came alive when spoken aloud thanks to intuitive manipulation of structure and meter. Second place finisher and Manor champion Sam had a unique idea to map the stereotypical characteristics of various shoe brands to the different stages of human life. Overall winner and champion for Throwley, Ben managed to bring quite a few of these together. It’s unusual for a poem with bold graphological elements to rise to the top, but Ben’s exploration of the life cycle of a pair of baby shoes, worn then discarded, given new life with a younger sibling, until eventually returned to the box as a priceless nostalgic treasure, managed to use relatively few words and deliberate arrangement on the page to tell a story which connected with the judges and we expect will connect with lots of you when you read it too.

Thank you to all the students and staff who contributed to this year’s collection and particularly to Alexander, now appointed our Head Student for 25-26, who collated the poems together. The poems featured in the published collection are a selection from the judges of both the winners and honourable mentions, all worthy of congratulations.

The winning poems can be found here.

Mr C.Roy

SGS Teacher 2022-

SGS Student 2003-2010