Next Thursday is National Poetry Day, which is cause for celebration all round. Leading the festivities in Scotland will be Borders schoolgirl Zoe Mills, aged 10, who won this year’s Poems to Post competition on the theme of celebration, run by the Scottish Book Trust and sponsored by the Royal Mail and TES Scotland.

Zoe’s poem features on 50,000 specially designed postcards which have been published by Design Links for National Poetry Day and will be distributed around the country. Her school, Coldingham Primary, will receive two days of poetry workshops run by Glasgow-born poet John Rice.

The winning poem was selected from 1,500 entries from schools across Scotland. The Scottish Book Trust was delighted with the “fantastic” response and the range of views of celebration from children aged five upwards.

“The standard was better this year. Obviously some teachers had applied the article by poet John Rice (TES Scotland Plus, April 19) that launched the competition and encouraged teachers to use it as part of a classroom activity, and that was very gratifying,” said a spokeswoman for the Scottish Book Trust.

“There was masses about drinking and a lot about the Queen’s golden jubilee and the football world cup.”

The largest batch was from nine to 12-year-olds but the judges were unanimous in their choice of Zoe Mills’s poem, “Celebration”, as the overall winner. Formally it works well, taking three-line verse throughout and with effective repetition at the beginning of each stanza. The judges liked the range of vocabulary, with words such as “akimbo” and “kerfuffle”, and the atmosphere conveyed by the sounds and images. Also they thought the rhythm was unusual for a child’s poem and that it was accomplished for a 10-year-old.

There were four runners-up who, like Zoe, each received a pound;25 book token. Laura Holt, aged 15, of James Young High in Livingston, West Lothian, took a ceilidh as her focus and presented dance in a very different way from Zoe. Again, the judges thought her poem captured the atmosphere very well, with characters flinging themselves around and coming to a sudden stop as the music ends.

They thought Robert McCormick, aged 10, of St Paul’s Primary in Whiteinch, Glasgow, presented an interesting concept of celebration in “My Brother Comes Home for a Couple of Weeks”. This poem adopts normal speech patterns and is moving, understated but direct and concentrates on the feelings behind the actions.

Eileen Aspey, aged nine, of Pitcorthie Primary in Dunfermline, Fife, opted for a Scots poem and took a simple theme about a puddock, or frog. Her work, “Spring is Here”, was remarkably confident and mature in its use of the Scots language, said the judges.

Abigail McCormack, aged 13, of Hutcheson’s Grammar in Glasgow, took birthdays as her theme. “Birthday Wishes” is a rather sad, if cynical, narrative poem which portrays an interesting situation, not just a good time.

National Poetry Day will be celebrated with events nationwide. The main event for schools, organised by the Scottish Book Trust in association with Big Word Performance Poetry, is a Poetry Slam in Edinburgh. Twelve poets will compete in two-minute rounds of performance poetry in front of an audience of 150 schoolchildren aged 10-12 at the Odeon in Clerk Street. A judging panel and audience participation will choose the winner. For those unfamiliar with poetry slams, they are fast paced and very funny, like stand-up comedy “gong” shows.

Big Word is also organising a Poetry Slam for an adult audience in the evening at the Gilded Balloon venue in Edinburgh.

Other events include Stewart Conn giving a reading at the Writers’ Museum in Edinburgh at 1pm. Edwin Morgan will give a reading at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow at 1pm and then in the library at Bridge of Allan at 7pm. He has also been commissioned by the BBC to write a poem about happiness. Christine De Luca’s poems have been recorded by the BBC to broadcast throughout the day.

Matthew Fitt will be celebrating on three days, reading in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, on October 9, visiting Aberdeen schools on National Poetry Day and leading poetry workshops in Glasgow on October 11.

The judges of Poems to Post were poets John Rice and Dilys Rose, Ken Cockburn of the Scottish Poetry Library, Julie Morrison of Consignia and Gillian Macdonald, assistant editor of TES Scotland

WINNING WORDS

Celebration

by Zoe Mills

Do the conga longa,

The bells are ringing donga,

So celebrate today.

So celebrate today,

Let’s all do the cha-cha,

Maracas clicking ha ha.

Maracas clicking ha ha,

As we do the tango,

Around the room we cango.

Around the room we cango,

And on we do the limbo,

With legs out stretched akimbo.

With legs out stretched akimbo,

We lead then to the shuffle,

And create a big kerfuffle,

Let’s celebrate today.

Spring is Here

by Eileen Aspey

Aince I saw a wee, wee puddock.

It lookit up at me, then loupit

O’er a log, o’er a stane, intae a bonnie burnie.

Says I Ye’re a bonnie wee frog.

Dae ye ken it’s the first day o’ spring?

Dae a’ the frogs come oot the day?

The frog replied, They dae.

Weel, ah’ll best be goin’

Hame tae ma wee bonnie burnie.

Ceilidh

by Laura Holt

Heeyeuch!

Leaping

Prancing

Merriment

Dancing

Heeyeuch!

Our hearts beating

louder, louder

Heeyeuch!

Jumping

Tripping

Drunkenness

Skipping

Heeyeuch!

And stop.

Birthday Wishes

by Abigail McCormack

I open the door and switch on the

light

My friends and family all jump out.

I pretend to get a fright

“Happy Birthday!” they all shout.

But really their surprise party wasn’t

much of a shock.

Everyone is trying too hard to

make up for last year

When they all forgot.

There are gifts everwhere

And bright balloons surround me.

Music is playing and the party is

underway.

I open the first present;

It’s not exactly what I’d hoped for,

But I smile and thank them for the

gift,

Glad to know that I only have to

put up with this fake celebration

Once a year.