Bust-a-Rhyme Poets

Budding poets from Salford City Academy polished up their prose to succeed in a Young Writers competition.  Pupils entered the national competition back in October 2009, and Salford City Academy recently discovered that many of the pupils would become published poets due to their outstanding efforts.

The ‘Bust-A-Rhyme' competition is just one of many established by Young Writers, a company which has run annual, nationwide contests for the past 19 years. The aim of which is to promote poetry and creative writing within schools and to showcase the work of today's school children.

A great number of Salford City Academy pupils entered the competition with a brief to create a poem of a maximum of 30 lines and were given free range to explore any subject. Pupils looked at different forms of poetry in lessons and then created their own; the themes ranged from friendship, to hamsters to crime with titles such as ‘I Hate Sundays', ‘The Hamster Dragon' and ‘Truth of Lie'.

Melissa Robinson, Year 9, said "I like writing poetry and the competition was a good challenge. My poem was called ‘They Choose Me' about bullying; the message was that bullies can find anything to pick on you for so kids shouldn't try and change anything about themselves."

"It was a surprise getting the letter to say my poem was being published. I was really excited when I got my copy of the book and I've been showing it off to my friends and family!"

Each and every competition results in publications of anthologies; the best poems from Salford City Academy pupils now feature in "Bust-A-Rhyme" (North Yorkshire and The North) which is on sale across the UK.

Kim Larsen-Taylor, Salford City Academy's Director of Literacy said "The imagination, energy and creativity which goes into each Young Writers publication, makes reading them hugely rewarding for our pupils. To have their poetry published is an accomplishment which many adults may never achieve and we congratulate them wholeheartedly."

Morgan Wallace from Young Writers said "Our aim is to encourage and inspire children to write poetry and it is great to hear that we are doing this. The pupils of Salford City Academy sent us some great work and really deserve to have their work published."