British Council Germany, together with the Haus für Poesie, organised a poetry competition for school pupils in 2019 throughout Germany. Inspiration for this year's poetry competition came from Nicole May's poem 'A Rucksack and a Journey', a poem on the theme of 'change' commissioned by BBC Local Radio and National Poetry Day 2018. Manchester poet Nicole May came to Berlin in January as part of #BritLitBerlin and ran poetry workshops in schools.
We had a record-breaking number of submissions this year from all over Germany and were extremely impressed with the high standard. Thank you to all those young poets who took part!
We are delighted to announce the following winners:
Poems written in German
- First place: Anna Hattler, 17, Liebfrauenschule (Köln) - "Gedicht zu 'A Rucksack and a Journey'"
- Runner up: Noah Baron, 14, Gymnasium Lukas Bassum (Syke bei Bremen) - "WaldTag: A Journey"
- Highly commended: Benedikt Gotzens, 17, Otto-von-Taube-Gymnasium (Gauting) - "Kleinstadt"
Poems written in English
- First place: Isabelle Decher, 18, Liebfrauenschule (Köln) - "We are the Water"
- Runner up: Maïlé Toussaint, 18, Sophie-Scholl-Schule (Berlin) - "Response to Rucksack and a Journey"
In due course the winning poems will be published on the Haus für Poesie website too. Watch this space!