Johnston pupils part of great poem

A last minute entry for a poetry competition by students from Johnston Primary School has yielded a prize.

The year five and six pupils, taught by Mr Tim Pounder, entered a worldwide competition to contribute towards ‘Dylan’s Great Poem’, a bi-lingual piece of work written by young people aged 7-25 to mark International Dylan Thomas Day.

To enter, budding poets had to submit four lines of no more than eight words per line inspired by Dylan’s famous poem ‘The hand that signed the paper.’

The best 100 lines received were then combined to create the ‘Great Poem.’

The poem was recited live at Cardiff Library on Saturday, May 14th the date of International Dylan Thomas Day.

From the hundreds of submissions, eight pupils from Johnston C.P. had their lines chosen.

Mr Pounder said having so many make up the final poem was a wonderful surprise. He said the competition result was a bonus. It was the way all the children within the class embraced the task was what really impressed him.

“I only decided to enter the competition at the eleventh hour and thought we had left it too late so to have so many lines be included in the poem is an unexpected bonus.

“We just did some classwork based on it and asked them to think about how they could contribute to the ‘Great Poem’

“We put a lot of emphasis on writing for a purpose in school and this helped focus their thoughts. It shows what can be achieved by our pupils. Once the children started talking about what ‘The hand that signed the paper’ was about, they really got into it and the quality of their work was incredible.

“In my day, we didn’t touch poetry at this level until we were in secondary school but if you don’t give children opportunity you don’t know what they are capable of and the pupils have created something inspirational.”

“I’m extremely proud of them,” added Mr Pounder. “Firstly, for showing such enthusiasm for poetry and secondly for creating such brilliant work.”

Mr Pounder’s words were echoed by Eva John, Challenge Adviser for English and Literacy.

She said: “The children responded very strongly to Dylan Thomas’s poem, ‘The Hand that Signed the Paper’.

“Their own writing on the subject of hands, using the poem as a stimulus, reflects their clarity of observation, sensitivity and individuality.

“It is a wonderful achievement to have their words selected as part of an international bi-lingual poem in celebration of a great Welsh poet.”

Dylan’s Great Poem can be viewed on www.literaturewales.org/dylans_great_poem

Captions 

Pictured are Johnston CP School pupils James, Jayson, Penda, Frankie, Craig, Dylan, Sophie, and Abbie, whose poetry was included in ‘Dylan’s Great Poem’.

Pictured with pupils Abbie, Sophie, Jayson, Penda, James, Frankie, Craig, and Dylan are (left to right) headteacher Gareth Thomas, deputy headteacher Tim Pounder, and challenge adviser Eva John.