I am very pleased to announce that our very own Y13 English student: Zoe S, has been shortlisted for her entry in the prestigious University of Birmingham’s Benjamin Zephaniah Future Writer’s competition. This is a national competition, open to students in years 10-13 across the country. We are therefore absolutely delighted to celebrate Zoe’s achievement in being shortlisted!
This year’s theme was inspired by Benjamin Zephaniah’s poem ‘Nature Trail’, encouraging budding writers to submit poems about the environment, the spaces where they spend their time, the impact of nature on their everyday life, and the importance of looking after the planet. His work is studied by pupils globally (including our Y7s) and features on many GCSE courses.
Born and raised in Handsworth, Birmingham, Benjamin Zephaniah became a national treasure through his writing and extraordinary poetry, later becoming an actor, a musician and a professor of poetry and creative writing. His love of animals, nature, and his strong beliefs in human rights, made him popular with many. Benjamin drew on his lived experiences of dyslexia, incarceration, racism and his Jamaican heritage, and he aimed to make his work accessible for all. His writing shaped generations of both adults and children, and he left a remarkable legacy on the city he was born and the nation he called home.
Find out more about Benjamin Zephaniah by reading this attached feature article, celebrating notable figures as part of Black History Month 2025.
You can read Zoe’s shortlisted entry below and we wish her the best of luck as she submits her UCAS applications and starts her own future as a writer- well done, Zoe!
– Miss Kitchin and The English Department
Broken Body/Flower/Promises
I hold within my hands
A broken body
Bruised and softened skin
Snapped spine
Uprooted from the
Warm, loamy soil of life
Instead, this body is cold
It grows rot instead of love
Sinks down instead of rising up
Decomposes
The world forgets
My hands do not
I held within my hands
A broken Flower
Bruised and softened Petals
Snapped Stem
Discarded by the
Tick tick tick
Of humanity’s cruel, cold
Mechanism
You promise me
Its death will become life
Its end will become a beginning
You say the world will not end with the casual cruelty of a single person
You forget
I will inherit the earth
I feel each punch
kick
twist
tear
As if
They are
Mine
I promise not to
Gift the next generation
False
Promises