Eleven-year-old Robert discovered his remarkable talent in First Story workshops with poets Lemn Sissay and Caroline Bird, a two-time winner of the award. He is the youngest winner of this year’s competition which adds to his outstanding achievement.

Read his staggeringly beautiful poem ‘Sadness’:

Sadness

I took Sadness to a boxing match.
He pushed the door open slowly with one finger
dragging his feet, it sounded like
a snake hissing as it died.

With his face light blue and his clothes faded grey,
his eyes showed that something he’d loved had gone.
Others looked, but ignored him and carried on.
Sadness became sadder, and shrunk a bit.

I sat with him and said ‘you don’t have to be sad
because you still have a friend.’
He started to smile and shine more brightly
and his light blue face had more colour to it
and his clothes beamed brighter too.

When the first match was over
people came and started to talk to him and said
‘We just looked away because the match was on…,’
and Sadness became bright gold and was happy. 

To read the other winners’ poems, click here.

Source: First Story