Today at My Poetic Side we dedicate our news round up to some young poets and the part that they are playing in the literary world, watch this space we could see more of these youngsters over the coming years.

Siblings Win Place on List of Promising Young Poets

Organised by the Poetry Society, the annual Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, which is in its 19^th year announced it list of the worlds’ 100 most promising young poets earlier this week.

This is one of the biggest literary awards in the world and this year over 6000 entrants submitted around 11,000 poems. From those entrant’s just 100 are chosen to join the list. The competition is open to youngsters between the ages of 11 to 17, and entries must be written in English. This year entries were received from 89 different countries including Syria, Zimbabwe, Azerbaijan and Myanmar.

A pair of siblings from Cruden Bay in Aberdeenshire have been chosen to join the list. Magnus Dixon is 17 and this is the fifth time that he has earned a place on the list, he made his first appearance at the tender age of 12. His sister Ailsa is 14 this is the first time she has submitted a poem to the competition; her brother encouraged her to send a poem in.

Both children credit their parents with instilling a love of books and literature in them from an early age; their mother and their father studied English at University. Whilst Magnus bases his poetry on landscapes and geography, his sister prefers cultural influences for her poems.

12-Year-Old Wins Poetry Prize

12-year-old Solli Raphael who hails from Coffs Harbour, in Australia, has astounded the judges of the finals of the Australian National Poetry Slam National  by becoming the youngest winner in the history of the competition. Solli who is currently studying in year 7 beat a number of adult participants and won in a tie breaker to take the title.

Poetry Slam competitions take place with a live audience with participants reading their poetry without prompts, music or props; just the poet, the audience and the chosen judges. The points are given to the poets for the writing of the poem and the delivery. A nerve-racking experience for anyone but Solli claims he was very focused and just pushed through the fear.

The poem which helped win this 12-year-old the competition focused on equality for everyone. As well as the cash prize Solli is eligible to travel to Indonesia for the Ubud  Festival, the Australian Byron Writers and Hong Kong’s International Literary Celebration.

And whilst you might think that this win would place Solli firmly on the path to a future career in poetry you would be wrong. He is currently in the process of writing two books and is determined to be an author when he grows up.  But he wants other youngsters to believe in their dreams and just go for it, he feels that goals are there to be reached.