Poetry Pentathlon
One of the events of the Creative Arts Festival was a Poetry Pentathlon, which was held at lunchtime on Wednesday 13th July. Students were challenged to do any or all of a selection of five mini-poetry ‘events’ (see below).
The idea was to compose poetry at speed, letting the inspirations provided prompt a spontaneous response in the moment. This method of composing, which entails getting fleeting ideas down on paper, can be surprisingly fruitful. Some ideas produced are surreal and bizarre, others are cleverly and succinctly meaningful. I’m sure you will agree that our winners certainly produced work that was indeed poetic, surprising and even thought-provoking.
The most popular event was ‘Fridge Magnet’ poetry, for which students had a random selection of words to arrange into poems. This proved a fascinating pursuit, and we could have spent many hours moving the words around into different combinations.
Some students chose to focus on one event, and some did two or three, but two Y7 students, Nivi and Yaashawi, did all five events, and therefore won the grand prizes. Their outcomes are attached.
Poetry Pentathlon Winning Poems 
Our favourite poem of all was Yaashawi’s poem using the Words of the Week display we have in our main corridor. Her piece used the words ‘era’, ‘woebegone’ and ‘lustrous’ in an inspiring way. Here it is
It is now a new era
Not woebegone like the last
But lustrous and bright
Other worthy participants were Diya, Rubi, Amina, Aimee, Emily in Y7, Saswathi, Shreya, Freya and Lithumi in Y8.
Thank you to Connie and Izzy in Y12 for helping out.
THE FIVE EVENTS
Fridge Magnet
Fridge magnet poetry is created from a random but set selection of words. What is the longest (semi) meaningful poetic stanza you can create using words from the selection? You may add ONE word of your own.
Lucky Dip
Write a few rhyming lines on a randomly chosen topic from the lucky dip. If you don’t like your first topic, you can have one more go, but MUST do your second topic – do you gamble?
Throw the Dice
Write a short poem inspired by the symbol on the dice. You can take it literally, or interpret it symbolically.
Found Poem
Found poems are made of random words and phrases found on random pieces of text in the environment, eg notices, posters, scraps of paper lying around, titles of books on shelves etc. Make up a poem using found words/phrases around the school, on any topic or theme. You cannot use the Words of the Week! You may add small words like ‘and’ and ‘to’ etc.
Word of the Week
Use the Words of the Week displayed on the main corridor to create a couple of lines of poetry on any topic or theme. You may add small words like ‘and’ and ‘to’ etc.