Muse Christmas Poetry Shindig: Tis' the season to be poetic!

The mulled wine is warming by the fire (non-alcoholic – sorry kids!), and there’s a huge pile of sugar-dusted mince pies and gingerbread men in Cosmo’s office. It must be the Muse Christmas poetry shindig!

Every year, our Muse poetry event marks a sort of unofficial start to Christmas, and gives Cosmo the heave-hohoho needed to get the chimney swept and the logs crackling.

Firstly, a HUGE thank you to everyone who turned up in such a tightly packed lunchtime slot. Thanks also to the amazing teachers who read:

Chris, for all of his humbleness (‘I didn’t practise’), read beautifully.

Annick, for alerting Hurtwood students to the fact that Victor Hugo didn’t just write Les Mis.

Doug, for showing you can take the boy outta Theatre, but you can’t take the theatre out of the boy. (Welcome to the English Dept!)

And lastly but not leastly, the wonderful Clare who read a hilarious original piece about snow (though only the old folks laughed at the jokes about losing your ‘no claims bonus’. They’re only young. They will learn.)

It would be remiss of us to not mention the INCREDIBLE talent our poetics and writers in Muse have demonstrated this year. At the end of the reading, we presented awards for our recent ‘New Horizons’ poetry competition:

4^th place: Lily Sheppard – ‘Bittersweet Dreams’

3^rd place: Freyja Simpson Dawson – ‘Sometimes You See’

2^nd place: Tabby Louw – ‘Bigger Than This Room’

1^st place: Sophie Gonzalez – ‘I Wake in Mirrors’

Multimedia special prize: Darcie Westby – ‘Dancing into Light’

We had SUCH a tough job selecting the best writing from such a strong offering, so thanks again to all who contributed to the competition. See below for all of the winners, and some of the other excellent entries. Thanks for being a part of this, and making it such fun!