Poetry Competition Winning Entries

Thank you to everyone who entered this competition and helped to raise vital funds for our Branch. Thank you also to James Nash for Judging the competition and the Book Case book store in Hebden Bridge for donating the prizes.

'It was a great pleasure to judge the Pet Poetry Competition 2011 and to appreciate the extremely good poetry produced about hamsters, cats, dog, horses and goldfish...pets are part of many of our lives and the devotion we give them, and often get back in return, is part of the pleasure of the relationship we have with them. But the best of the poetry I found amongst the entries seemed to be aware of a little more than that. So we get poems about the beauty and mystery of the animals with which we share our lives, and the responsibilities we have towards them. Many of the young people's entries expressed an understanding of the importance of the work of the RSPCA. The adult poetry seemed to be more equivocal about the animals [particularly cats] recognising that their behaviour is not always pleasant from a human perspective.

As in all poetry competitions the winning poems stood out almost immediately, the lovely fishy images in the Tom's poem 'The Fish' and the marvellous physical description in Sue Hirst's poem 'Dual Spirit', the rhythms of Lucy Hirst's 'A Horse' and the humour in Fay Blackburn's 'A Matter of Life and Death'. The poems placed third in both categories, Kate Goodchild's poem about her hamster Alfie and V. Hughes' 'Su-Tsi the Inscrutable' were also very good pieces.

Congratulations to all who took part; the standard of entry was very high.