BGU Tennyson Poetry Award 2023

Following what is now a tradition at BGU, the English team would like to invite you all to celebrate the power of language through poetry this spring with the BGU Tennyson Poetry Award 2023.

Why not take the opportunity during this April break to enjoy some poetry by venturing into poems by April born poets such as Maya Angelou, William Wordsworth, Charlotte Bronte and William Shakespeare, for example, or writing some lines of your own to seize a moment or reflect on the world outside or inside you.

If inspired, we would like students and staff to consider taking part in BGU Tennyson Poetry Award 2023. To do so, write lines and lyrics in response to 'Flower in the crannied wall' by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892). You can find some of its lines carved on the plinth of Tennyson’s statue here in Lincoln, on the grounds of the Cathedral.

Inspired by the Lincolnshire-born Victorian Poet Laureate, the Tennyson Poetry Award asks you to submit an original poem in response to a poem by Tennyson. Your poem may respond to Tennyson’s ‘Flower in the crannied wall’ in multiple and varied ways, without limits in terms of form, style, and lyrical language.

To submit your poem, please send it as an attachment via email, including your name and contact details, to Dr Claudia Capancioni, Programme Leader for English, by 2nd June 2023 - claudia.capancioni@bishopg.ac.uk

The winner/s will be announced on National Poetry 2023 (Thursday 5th October 2023).

‘Flower in the crannied wall’:

Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower—but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

To celebrate National Poetry Day 2022, which was included in the Black History Month programme, staff and students shared their personal experiences, whether they were fun memories, intimate moments and shared wisdom, through their poems. It was a very enriching experience for those who attended: and we also all learnt how to compose a book spine poem and about the importance of personal triads.

During the event, we also announced and had the pleasure to enjoy a poem that was awarded the Tennyson Poetry Award 2022, ‘A Word from Amphitrite’ by Daisy Hardwick Shaw.

‘A Word from Amphitrite’, is a poem by third-year English Literature student, Daisy Hardwick Shaw. Her original poem was inspired by an extract from ‘Ulysses’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) and, with her permission, we share with you here:

‘A Word from Amphitrite’ by Daisy Hardwick Shaw