The Browning Society Poetry Prize

  The young Elizabeth Barrett confessed that she was dreadful at sewing, needle-work and other such female accomplishments, but she loved to write poetry. When she was only nine years old her father dubbed her ‘the Poet Laureate of Hope End,' the family home in Herefordshire. As a toddler, Robert Browning made up rhymes while walking round the dining room, clinging to the table to steady himself. ‘I cannot remember the time when I did not make verses and think verse-making the finest thing in the world,' he once said. To encourage interest among young people in the work of these two poets and the writing of poetry, The Browning Society has established an annual poetry competition.

The competition, open to students who are citizens of or resident in the United Kingdom , is divided into two different age groups: 9 to 13 and 14 to 19. The winner of the first group (9-13) will receive a cheque for £100; the winner of the second group (14-19) will receive a cheque for £200. Both winning poems will be published on The Browning Society website, and the winners will be invited to the annual wreath-laying ceremony in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.

Congratulations to the 2005/6 winners! The judges were hugely impressed by the quality of the poems submitted this year. Well done to everyone who entered! Special congratulations go to the two winners, 17-year-old Catherine Reeves of Edinburgh and 13-year-old Alfred Briggs of Devon, both of whom based their poems on Robert Browning's tale of jealousy and murder, ‘My Last Duchess'. Catherine's poem, ‘ Victoria, Deceased' , is a perfectly drawn and terrifying portrait of a father's stifling love for his daughter, while Alfred's entry, ‘ A Brokenhearted Girl ', is a simple yet clever exploration of young love.

To read the winning poems, click on the titles or go to the bottom of this page.

The final judges for the 2005/6 competition were Jacqueline Wilson, Children's Laureate, Karen Simmonds, Head of English at the Harrodian School , Michael Meredith, Librarian of Eton College, and Dr Pamela Neville-Sington, biographer of Robert Browning.

How To Enter Next Year's Competition:

For the 2006/7 Browning Society Poetry Prize, entrants should draw inspiration from or write in the style of one of the two poems printed below: ‘ Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came ' by Robert Browning or ‘ To Flush, My Dog' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Dedicate your poem to a much loved pet, like Elizabeth did for her cocker spaniel, Flush. Alternatively, reveal in verse the secrets of the Dark Tower or what happens once Childe Roland blows his slug-horn at the end. Please, no poems longer than 70 lines; entries can be much shorter, perhaps just few stanzas or a sonnet of 14 lines. Use your imagination!

Rules : Poems should be in English, no longer than 70 lines, typed or word-processed, doubled-spaced, printed on one side only, and the pages (if more than one) numbered. Please do not write your name anywhere on the poem, but include a cover sheet with your name, title of your poem, address, phone number, e-mail address, date of birth, and the name of your most recent school or place of education. Do tell us how you heard about the competition.

Please send three copies of your poem – postmarked no later than 15 March 2007– to the following address: The Browning Society Poetry Prize, 84 Addison Gardens, London W14 0DR. You may also email your poem (as an attachment, please, in Microsoft Word or a similar word processing program) to Pamela Neville-Sington.

If you have any questions, please contact Pamela Neville-Sington.

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Senior Prize  

Victoria , Deceased

by Catherine Reeves

I see your eyes, sir, wander to the stair --

Perhaps you note the portrait hanging there?

That girl's my daughter, dead this year or so . . .

Nay, sir, it was God's will that she should go --

Victoria -- although but seventeen.

(Named for her mother, and our sovereign queen.)

It travels with me, though for memory

Rather than ornament; for, as you see,

She was a homely maiden, and a plain.

So much the better: I would have no vain

And idle chit coquetting at my board.

For, so proclaims the Prophet of Our Lord,

There is no vice so foul as vanity,

And so full often did she hear from me.

For girls not hampered by a pretty face

Are tempted the less frequently from Grace,

And, I recall, I often bid her bless

The God who made her plain. Mark, sir, her dress,

Chaste, black and sober. Had she had her way,

She would have worn some frivolous, filled, gay,

Beribboned, rose-silk thing she begged to buy

One Christmas-time. Needless to say, sir, I

Refused. I saw the clothing of her peers,

Dressed up like slatterns, far beyond their years,

And would I let my child bedeck her so

And gad about with brazen minxes? No,

I dressed her modestly in black, and kept

Her back from company, who else had swept

Her down the giddy road to frippery.

I had her better occupied, sir. She,

On my advice, was dedicated much

To Mission work: knitting for heathens, such

Small acts of faith, along with steady, good,

Maturer women of our neighbourhood.

After my wife's demise, I having saved

Her leisure from the peers her weakness craved,

Her time was better-used still, making shift

(Under my principles of stringent thrift)

To budget for our household — though at first

I had here to reprove her, too; for, cursed,

As I suppose, with gluttony, she decked

Our meagre Christian board without respect

For means or moderation, so that I

Was used to reprimand her frequently

For her edification; saying, sir,

That Jesus Christ had not created her

Like to the swine, solely to eat and feed,

And wallow in her idleness and greed,

Daily becoming fatter and more gross,

But rather to lay hands upon the Cross,

And to abstain from fleshy joys. I deemed

She saw that it was wisdom, for she seemed

Thenceforward to avoid that deadly sin,

And grew in consequence more pale, and thin,

Wan in her cheek, as you may see her here

(The portrait painted in her final year),

And holily and meekly bowed her head,

As pleases God; although the doctors said

It was consumption sapped her strength; but I

Believe, sir, it was her humility

And filial duty to my words that broke --

Bowed, I would say — her spirits to the yoke --

The gentle yoke — of Jesus. Well, she's gone,

I pray, to Paradise . Let us move on --

You have not seen the upper rooms. The rent

Is reasonable, sir, you will assent.

The house is over-large for me alone . . .

Nay, come, sir, let us go. You shall be shown

My Sunday room: it weekly pleases me

There to reflect on Christian charity.

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Junior Prize

  A Brokenhearted Girl

by Alfred Briggs

That's my friend I say,

his countenance captured in frame.

I took it in the garden two years ago.

See him sitting on his shiny bicycle.

He looks at the camera,

his smile could will larks to ground.

The girl next door stares at him

and blushes as she passed him a piece of paper

which has been cleverly folded into a heart.

He thanked her well

but he never thanked me for my gift

of a fifteen-year-old friendship.

If only he had known my stare was not,

as he thought, of admiration,

but of pure affection.

When I looked he smiled, oh yes he

smiled,

but never like he smiled at her.

Then last year he left with the girl

and though he invited me I could not accept

for I was hurt. But now I wish

oh I wish that I had said yes

for to see him again would end this,

to see him again would repair my broken heart

and let me love you.