Teesdale student Jake Knight represented the North East in the Poetry by Heart competition, held at the British Library in London.
He was among 45 county winners and his stunning performance of 'The Galloping Cat' got him a special commendation and a prize.
Now, Jake has taken a break from poetry to tell us all about his fantastic experience at the competition:
"Recently I was fortunate enough to attend the national finals of the Poetry by Heart competition.This is a nationwide contest for 14-18 year olds, now in its fifth year. As a result of winning the County Durham region, I was invited down to London for the finals event.
The competition was held in the British Library, which I would recommend anyone to visit. People came from across the country to perform and we were split into regional areas; mine was the north east. Spread over two days, the performances were amazingly varied - poems ranged from the death of loved ones to the deaths of frogs, via ancient wars and emergency broadcasts on imminent nuclear attacks.
After a fabulous winners’ dinner and a night in LSE accommodation, the second day began. The final regions performed, then the judges chose a winner for each region, and commended certain recitations. Although I was not selected as area champion, I did have one of my poems - ‘The Galloping Cat’ by Stevie Smith - commended, which was a great surprise to me considering that I was one of the youngest there. Indigo Douglas from Sussex won the competition overall.
The finals were compèred by the tireless Jacob Sam-La Rose, who did a great job of calming everyone’s nerves – including mine. The judges were Jean Sprackland and Glyn Maxwell (team captains), as well as Daljit Nagra, Tim Dee, Patience Agbabi and David Whitley – all were extremely positive about every recitation, and are respected poets themselves.
I would thoroughly recommend this competition to anyone. The process of learning the poems has proven invaluable by getting me to think in new ways about poetry; in London I made loads of new friends and had a fabulous time. The whole weekend felt much more like a celebration of poetry than a competition. I must also thank Mrs Flint for taking me there and back, and providing excellent company throughout the competition. I did it, enjoyed it tremendously, and think that you would too!"
We think Jake gave a wonderful performance and did his school proud, well done!
You can watch Jake's performance below.