Students in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 recently entered the GDST Poetry Competition. The responses from the students showed their incredible talent at exploring human emotions in iambic pentameter, rhyme and repetition.
The Ocean by Lilly Dunn (Year 7)
The ocean sings in shades of blue,
A restless song both old and true.
It pulls the moon with silver thread
And dreams of shores where light has fled.
It waves still dance, then crash, then sigh,
Like breathing lungs beaneth the sky.
It keeps it secrets deep and wide,
Where glowing stars and shadows hide.
At dawn it gleams in a crystal dress,
By dusk it wears a dark caress.
It carves the stone, it claims the sand,
With patent strength no land withstands.
And when you stand upon the shore,
It whispers tales from long before:
That all must drift, and all return,
In endless tides that twist and turn.
Sitting in the Winter Sun by Nandini S (Year 7)
I like the hot chocolate.
I like the trees.
The cold aired breeze,
That makes me freeze.
The warm showers,
And snuggling up for hours,
In the cold,
Until what you’re watching becomes old.
Walking step by step,
With my large gloves on.
I don’t feel like moving my mouth,
Not even to sing my favourite songs.
But then those days that are oddly sunny,
Make the snow oddly runny,
And that’s when you have a lot of fun,
Sitting in the winter sun.
Like bamboo by Zarina C (Year 8)
You see, I had a problem.
In April or so
I lost a lot of hair.
A dark time for me.
But in the summer
it grew right back,
like bamboo, you could say.
I couldn’t put my hair in a ponytail
because it shot right up.
So, I had to cut
all my hair—
from back length
to shoulder height.
They warned me
it would be big and volumed on my head,
but I’d rather this
than nasty comments.
Or that’s what I thought.
You see, when I went to school
they came like raindrops:
“You look homeless.”
“Megamind hair.”
I can’t even show how much it hurt.
I just smiled back.
But their words cut
deep down inside.
I loved my new look—
but not anymore.
I look in the mirror
and now I hate my hair.
But I can’t magically make it grow faster.
Can I?
It’s not like this is new.
It’s all been said before
I just thought
now that I’m older
it wouldn’t happen anymore.
But I was wrong.
People will always have an opinion about you.
But that doesn’t mean
it’s true.
Where the fields end, I think of you by Aarabi A (Year 9)
[This poem is written from the perspective of a young man from the countryside in Germany. This is a quiet letter of love, who transfers his longing into words, across the distance that sets them apart. Directed to the one he aches to see once again.]
Where the fields end, I think of you,
Where the last fence leans into air,
The ground breathes out the warmth it kept,
While night drapes the world in quiet hues.
I stop and watch the light grow quiet,
While resting lone on a tree.
Each sound feels distant from itself,
As if the world is missing from me.
I carry you in ordinary things,
The ache of work, the tug of home.
My hands remember how you laugh,
Though now they fade on air alone.
The last light fades behind the hills,
And I press my hands into empty air.
I call your name, mein Schatz.
And the night keeps it, aching for you.
Suffer (to tolerate the absence of peace) by Chloe D (Year 9)
This war has no reason, no right, no truth.
This war brings sorrow to even the youth.
Who remembers the soldiers in silver?
The women working in bitter winter.
The children who cry for simple pleasures.
The men who’ve seen humanities’ terrors.
No one can witness each other’s great pain,
Even the great sky looks at us with shame.
Some in power attempt to do what’s right,
But without pain why would there be good nights?
Without law we’d be the same as creatures.
Without values we’d all just be cheaters.
You can’t claim to know war because of pain.
You can’t claim to be different but the same.
For beyond these walls where we live our own lives,
Our only wish is to share the same skies.
A great war is never a fight for peace.
In this argument you just disagree.
Life is not survival of the fittest.
Death is not a peaceful way to finish.
You fight for the world you wished you could have.
You fight for the people you have seen halved.
You fight against people you could have known.
You fight against your own self all alone.
For war has no reason, no right, no truth.
For war brings sorrow to even the youth.
A Fact I Don’t Remember Choosing by Metha S (Year 9)
Lockers slam like starting guns each day,
We march through corridors of borrowed names,
Our laughter loud, but careful what we say,
Afraid one slip will set the feeds to flames.
We learn to pose before we learn to feel,
And trade what’s true for something more ideal.
The mirrors hum with who we ought to be,
Filtered faces flicker late at night,
We count our worth in hearts we cannot see,
And chase blue light that steals the edge of sight.
Homework, headlines, futures we must chase,
While childhood fades without a single trace.
Rumours bloom faster than we can defend,
A screenshot spreads like fire across the room,
Best friends can turn with one unsent “send”,
And jokes can curdle into certain doom.
We carry storms behind a steady stare,
Pretending that we never feel despair.
We’re told these years are golden, brights, and free,
The best of life before the real world starts,
Yet pressure sits like hands we cannot see,
Tight on our lungs and tighter on our hearts.
We lie awake with ceilings closing in,
And call exhaustion discipline.
So wake up every day, before it’s too late
Before you youth is sealed behind a gate
Look up from glasses and breathe in something real
Not every trending wound is yours to feel
The clock is cruel, it won’t prolong
And when tomorrow rises, it may all be gone.
Ammamma (Grandma) by Kara S (Year 10)
You ask about our day, your voice gentle somehow
We forgot to reply and we’re sorry now
Your kindness lingers in the room, in the place you would always be
When you’re among the garden where rose petals bow
Robins gather near you, there voices gather round
You cling to the hose pipe while the garden surrounds
Court Drive breathes your stories in the rush of the morning
Each plant you place is a promise, each root a tender bloom
And laughter drifts like sunlight through your living room
Time turned strange somehow, its hours unsettled
Old working days return, their voices your unsure
You speak as if those years are standing at the door
Your memories flicker softly like candles in the past
We listened, not grasping each wondering day
While moments, like petals, slowly slipped away
You speak of him at dusk, remembering somehow
His empty place beside you still waiting there
The quiet of the room curls softly round that leather chair
Your love for him still lingers like lyrics we don’t know
Two starts that one moved slowly through a spree
And even now his shadow walks, quietly you think you see
You asked about our days, we understand it now
The robins guard you garden still, even when your not there
Your stories bloom forever in the soil everywhere
In the end
Though we spoke too little while you walked this fragile earth
Your love still grows within us, the root of all our worth