Young poets celebrated at awards

28th April 2015

Young poets from around the region have been commended at the awards ceremony for the winners of Sheffield Hallam University's annual poetry competition, UniVerse.

Rosemary Badcoe, winner of last year's competition, judged the entries, along with MA Writing course leader Conor O'Callaghan, who praised the Sheffield Hallam students and sixth form pupils who took part. Ahead of the competition, entrants from schools and colleges took part in creative writing workshops with lecturers at the University. Conor said: "The competition is a good way of encouraging our writing students to think about presenting their work publicly, and give them experience of reading to an audience. "It's also a fantastic opportunity for young people from our partner schools and colleges to gain valuable, practical experience of creative writing. Hopefully we've inspired some of tomorrow's poets." The judges presented the competition winners with their prizes, including a canvas of their poems, and book vouchers. The award-winning poem will be displayed in the University's Adsetts Centre as part of the Art in Adsetts exhibition, and each poet received vouchers to spend in bookshop Waterstones, the competition sponsor. Schools winners: 3rd - Emily Drummond for dementia 2nd - Abigail Smith for A Little Different 1st - Rebecca Summerscales for Fifty A Day Sheffield Hallam student winners: Joint 3rd - Julian Dobson for The Defiance of Trees Joint 3rd - Joanna Dobson for Silver Howe 2nd - Matthew Dobson for Damselflies 1st - James Giddings for Where Pictures are Concerned For more information on Sheffield Hallam's annual poetry competition, visit blogs.shu.ac.uk/universe.