A student from the School of English has won the inaugural Free Verse competition run by the UK Poetry Library. Danielle Burford entered her poem Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow into the national competition and won against hundreds of entries. Danielle, who is 18 and from Ramsgate in Kent, says the inspiration for her poetry comes from her grandmother, who first got her involved in poetry competitions.
Danielle said: ‘When I was eight my grandmother encouraged me to submit a poem to United Press and when it was published this gave me the inspiration to write more poetry. I wrote my winning poem to reflect the fact that both the ally and enemy nation share in the grief of losing loved ones in war.’
Danielle is studying English and American Literature and English Language and Linguistics at the University’s Canterbury campus. She has won ten copies of the soon-to-be-published Free Verse Poets of 2013, where her poem will be featured.
You can read Danielle’s winning poem below.
YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW
The sky seethes burnt umber above the murky Land Of The Free’
And yet with each passing dusk and dawn another face is added
To the peaking number of those who will not be returning home
Except encased in wood
And another silent moan is added to the cries layered in a tuneless song
Which echoes confusion and a sense of betrayal on a national scale
Who told my boy that war was romantic? Heroic? They belt,
Who gave him a rifle and led him to believe that another’s death may lead to our own salvation?
Didn’t they know that mothers half way across the world would mirror our grief?
Where is the heroism in hiding behind machines?
Where is the intellect in hiding behind brute force?
I’ll tell you.
There is none.
And where is the relief from this burning rawness of loss?
I’ll tell you.
There is none.
Danielle Burford