Packwood poet

20th May, 2010

Jamie Nugent from 1W has this week won the school Elocution Competition with his performance of a poem he wrote himself called 'Choices'. A most impressive achievement, not least because there were some excellent performances from the other finalists all of whom had chosen works by professional poets.

Every child in the school has taken part in the competition, learning a poem and reciting it in front of an audience of their peers. Their teachers and members of the English department judged the early rounds and Andrew Fletcher, Head of English at Rugby School joined us in the Packwood theatre on Tuesday 18 May to adjucate at the final. He commented on the high standard of the competition congratulating all those who took part on their poised, confident and self-assured performances.

Mr Fletcher was particularly impressed with Jamie’s confident and sensitive recital of his own work praising his thoughtful, clear and well-paced style of delivery. Another highlight of the morning was the dynamic, heavily accented performance by Marcus Woodhead of Jack Prelutsky’s 'Spaghetti, Spaghetti'. Marcus enthusiastically threw himself in to the role of a passionate Italian extolling the many and varied virtues of his favourite dish!

The final was divided in to three age groups and the full list of winners and runners-up follows:

Junior – Marcus Woodhead (1st), Edward Barry (runner up)
Middle – Jessie Hunt (1st), Laura Whittingham (runner up)
Senior – Jamie Nugent (1st), Emelia Lavender (runner up)

Jamie was delighted to be presented with the Elocution Cup by Mr Fletcher and we felt his poem was worthy of publication so it is reproduced below.

Choices

No special day that Wednesday
Ambling across the yard
As we’d done so many times before
Boys in the front, small talking
Girls in-tow, back-chatting
And I, walking in between, just thinking
Slowly they crossed the threshold to next lesson
Except me
In a moment I saw it all
The land beyond school
Beyond the concrete and the lessons
Beyond the teachers’ powers
I saw… freedom
The pale, smooth road
On which so many happy families had passed
Laughing, free of their troubles
The golden field on which the light shone
Like it was straight from heaven itself
On which butterflies danced and sang it seemed
The dark forest, so full of life and harmony
And the blue sky, so colourful yet so colourless
Beautiful beyond compare
This was where I truly belonged
Where I could run among fair nature as an animal
Free and joyful as a butterfly
And just be
But…
The chains were wrapped around me far too tight
I sighed and went to lessons
Freedom would have to wait a while.

By James Nugent