I wrongly assumed when I received my invitation to the Tower Poetry prize-giving last Thursday lunchtime at Christ Church that the event must have derived its name from Christopher Wren’s Tom Tower. Not so. It is named for a former student at the House, the late Christopher Tower, who bequeathed a sum of money to finance this annual competition for young writers aged 16 to 18. A very generous sum, too, for the first prize winner receives no less that £3,000, a tidy amount for someone still at school, with £2,250 shared among another five prize winners.
This year’s contest, judged by poets Bernard O'Donoghue and Carrie Etter, invited poems on a theme of ‘The Details’. There were entries from 614 young writers nationwide. It was great news, then, when the first prize was presented by the Dean of Christ Church, Christopher Lewis, to 18-year-old Azfa Ali, of Oxford Spires Academy.
Her winning poem, Origins, is divided into three short sections, subtitled: Killindoni [an island town in Tanzania], Refuge on a Motorway and Scotland.
Azfa earned warm applause from all present at Thursday’s reception when she accepted an invitation from Christ Church’s English Fellow, Dr Peter McDonald, to read her work.
The opening Killindoni reveals her compelling use of language: In my hometown:
I felt the rough sand
scrub against my feet;
chased salty orange crabs
who pinched my pinkie tight; so by firelight,
I would crunch into lemon-seeping shells,
feel the faint texture of sand
resting on my tongue.
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