Prize girl Grace unlocks poetic talent
A VALLEY schoolgirl’s poem about the coronavirus pandemic struck a chord with judges in an international poetry, speech, art and song competition.
Grace Connearn, 13, submitted ‘ Mental Health Conflict’ to a competition run by charity Never Such Innocence.
More than 3,000 entries were received from entrants aged 9- 18 in 99 countries.
Grace was delighted to receive a certificate back confirming she was among winners in her category.
Grace, the daughter of Christian and Christine, and older sister of Maverick, seven, said their teacher assigned them a piece of work to enter for the competition.
She said: “We were told we could write any type of poem and our topic was Covid- 19.
“The ‘ faces on the screen’ line and feeling alone, was about seeing my friends online but missing spending time with them in real life; this was the hardest part of lockdown for me.
“At first I didn’t realise that it was a global competition.
“So obviously I was really happy with what I had achieved but I didn’t realise how big it really was until I went onto the Zoom meeting with the other winners from the different categories all over the world.
“Our poems were sent to [ US President] Joe Biden and if it wasn’t for Covid- 19, we would have celebrated our achievements at a conference in London.
“There was some really great art and extremely talented winners.
“I’m thankful for Miss Dutton who put my poem forward.”
Christine said: “As parents we are extremely proud of Grace; we think her poem sums up how many people felt in lockdown and the inner worries of not knowing what the future will be.”
MENTAL HEALTH CONFLICT
Locked down: trapped at home,
Locked down: left on my own,
Locked down: feeling alone,
Locked down: digital faces on phone,
Locked down: our future unknown.
Locked down: enter the vaccine zone,
Locked down: a virus overthrown -
The key we needed... Look now: at how much we’ve grown.