Our new Poetry Club will start Monday 21st February from 11.00am – 12:00pm, this will be followed by a meeting on the 3rd Monday of each month. Please contact the office to book your zoom place. 0208 540 5446
To celebrate the launch of this exciting new course we held a poetry competition last year, the theme the winter season.
Thank you so much for all your entries, after much deliberation the judges have awarded first place to “10th December in the gardens of South London” by Claudio Marioni. Very well done to Claudio for so capturing the essence of the season. He will receive a £25 Waterstones voucher and a bottle of wine.
Special commendations to Terry James for “The Night Before Christmas” and to Liam O’Carroll for “The Outsider”
Please enjoy the winning poem:
10th December in the gardens of South London.
On naked boughs the skittish squirrels play,
The boughs, just like the dancing squirrels, grey;
While coal tits flit and dart and briefly stay
Before they flit and dart again away.
And snow with deathly silent footsteps treads
On slatted fences, shrubs and creaking sheds,
And turns to white the dormant flower-beds
Where not long since bright flowers raised their heads.
But all too soon a rusty weather-vane
Betrays the biting wind that brings fresh rain
To wipe the snow as though it were a stain,
Like clammy breath upon a window-pane.
And as the damp drives frost from all around,
A proud, defiant robin stands its ground.
Claudio Marioni
10th December 2017
