Finalists of the Megan Young Poetry Prize, an interschool competition held in Cambridge at The Stephen Perse Foundation. From left to right: Alexia Sloane (Comberton Village College), Esther Leonard (Hills Road Sixth Form College), Melissa Santiago-Val (Alumni Relations Officer, Stephen Perse Foundation), Varsia Desselberger (Stephen Perse Foundation), Ella Boston (St Mary’s), Helen Kedie (Head of English, Stephen Perse Foundation), Alice King (reading for Lucy Tansley, The Perse School).

It is almost a year since the publication of Wordsmith: The Gift of a Soul. This precious memoir is a tribute to the amazing talents of my daughter Megan Young. As she herself wrote: ‘I am a scientist, an artist, a Wordsmith’. She grew up to become an equine veterinary surgeon. But she was born a poet and wrote poetry almost from the moment she could form the letters. It is her work that has given birth to this book and also to the poetry competition, The Megan Young Poetry Prize, which was awarded for the first time earlier this year.

I wrote about The Megan Young Poetry Prize in an earlier Musing. It was won by Esther Leonard, a pupil at Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge. The prize was presented by the former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion who was also head of the judging panel. There is a symmetry to this. Twenty years ago at another Cambridge school, as a pupil at the Perse School for Girls, Megan was possibly at her most prolific. It is that time of life when young people are moving on into adulthood. Exams are studied for, universities applications are being made. The mind is working overtime. But throughout that period of intense activity, Megan was writing poetry.

I listened to Esther and the four other finalists of the Megan Young Poetry Prize as they read their work with such passion and commitment. It moved me to be to near them, to realise that here was another generation of young poets with such talent and depth of thought – and I marvel at it.

This is Esther’s poem, the winning entry in the Megan Young Poetry Prize.

THE RIVER

by Esther Leonard

Morning crescent bloom,
Spread across the water drops,
And moving – stop – and moving, now
The red break of scales,
The gurgling blue pales.

Knowing all that passes through,
A thousand years; each yet to come,
A second’s lifetime, then be gone,
With each moment torn,
A new river born,

And time stops and alters
The pale, purple light,
And wonders past
The great rocky hills,
Where the people lie still.

And the silence is more,
The water ripples,
Yet not silent, no,
Like snow in the night,
Barely in sight.

But this water is not
What it ought to be.
Hush. Stop.
Walk forward and look,
The shadows shook.

The darkness clings,
The form passes,
The water wavering.
Then, still, in the bed,
The water turns red.

©Esther Leonard