My first clear memory of poetry is from a Year 5 English lesson, where we wrote poems inspired by the book we were studying. The name is lost on me now, but it featured a midnight cat. Poetry was, for me then, delineated strictly by an ABAB rhyme scheme: graceful words careening into neat, equal lines. I didn’t yet know that just as poetic words are fluid, so too is structure: it can be rigid but also free.
The various extra-curricular activities that secondary school offered initially sundered the link I’d made with poetry. Although I had kept notebooks filled with stories and poetic musings in primary school, these books were left unopened and discarded, for choir and netball amongst other things. Attending Creative Writing Club in Year 8 reminded me of the vast poetic world, inviting me to ‘have a look’ and step closer. And there was my voice – forgotten, or perhaps mildly suppressed, still lingering there and waiting to be let out.
A writing task about protest showed me the power of words, and their ability not just to slide effortlessly past one another but to clash haphazardly – even dissonantly, and to strike loud. It was such loud and passionate voices that I found reading the winning entries to The Poetry Society’s 2019 Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. I felt heard when I discovered Amy Saunders’ poem ‘You’re Not Black’ which tackles the difficulty of adhering to stereotypes about race, and I was touched by Libby Russell’s tender presentation of teenage love in ‘A Word of Advice.’
I realised quickly that these young poets had articulated my experiences and my struggles with more vivacity, colour and dexterity than I’d ever thought possible. What had begun as a random Google search in lockdown, prompted by my school librarian, became a burst of creativity, and a feeling of ‘togetherness’ in days of isolation. I was no longer alone. I had a whole literary adventure before me.
Lockdown days were quickly characterized by reading, as well as listening, to poetry. I became fascinated by slam poets, stunned by Rudy Francisco’s ability to render language duplicitous – both familiar and unfamiliar, both literal and abstract, in ‘My Honest Poem.’ My unstructured journey into poetry was somewhat organized by the Young Poets Network: not only did it provide me with even more poems to read, but the challenges inspired me to set pen to paper.
I fondly remember writing several odes for the 2020 ‘Ode to (Small) Joy’ challenge. It reminded me of the beauty of everyday objects – the sound of the ‘pitter patter’ on a rainy day, and the heat of a scotch-bonnet pepper. And I remember my immense ‘joy’ when my ‘Ode to my pimple’ was longlisted. It was with similar joy, as well as a vast amount of disbelief, that I learned I was one of the top 15 winners of the Foyle Young Poets Award in 2020, which I would later be commended for, in 2021 and 2022.
I am not just grateful for the celebration of my poetry, but also for the poetic community I am now part of. In 2021, I attended a Young Poets Award Arvon course, which showed me this community whilst simultaneously giving me the space (i.e. acres of countryside) to develop my poetic voice amongst other teenagers and talented poets.
I look back with fondness at those days when poetry was strict and precise, but I’m glad to have discovered its potential for fluidity. Now it is delicate and strong: liberating and free.
Lauren Lisk
Lauren Lisk is a seventeen-year-old poet from London and was a Foyle Young Poet in 2020, 2021 and 2022. She has always loved writing and started writing poetry in primary school and was then encouraged to in Creative Writing club at secondary school. In her free time she plays piano, sings and bakes cakes.
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