On Thursday of last week, Cara Dawson boarded a train for an all expenses paid weekend in London. She had won 
the area heat of the Poetry by Heart Competition after winning the school round to see who would represent Polam Hall. In London she was one of 40 students from throughout the country aged 15 – 18 selected to represent their areas.
They each had to recite 2 poems in front of an audience and a judging panel made up of the likes of Sir Andrew Motion (Poet Laureate 1999 – 2009), Tim Dee (BBC Producer and writer), Patience Agbabi ( Poet) and Morag Styles
(Professor of Children's Literature at Cambridge University). They has to choose two poems from a long list on the Poetry by Heart website, one pre -1914 and one Post-1914.
Cara chose 'A Song for St Cecilia's Day' by John Dryden and 'The Applicant' by Sylvia Plath. Although she did not get into the final she got some amazing feedback and as she is only 15 she can always try again next year! Sir Andrew Motion was the Chair of the judging panel and a co-founder of the competition along with Julie Blake. This is how they welcomed everyone to the competition in the programme:
"Welcome to Poetry by Heart, the first competition of its kind ever to be held in England. It was launched with funding from the Department of Education at the end of last year-inviting students from schools around the country to learn two poems each from an anthology we had prepared and put online (at poetrybyheart.org.uk), then recite them aloud in front of an audience and judges.
Nearly eight hundred schools signed up for the competition, and those that followed through then worked to a tight schedule: preliminary rounds were held in individual schools, thirty-eight country rounds were held in libraries and other community venues, the regional semi-finals were held in London yesterday and this morning – and here we are now at the Finals at the National Portrait Gallery.
For everyone involved in the competition, it's been an extraordinary few months: an adventure, certainly, but also a kind of homecoming. An adventure because to take a poem into our memories, into our hearts, is to discover new things about the words and ourselves, and to know that we will keep them for ever; a homecoming because in the process of learning and remembering, we discover things we had forgotten, or didn't realise we already knew.
In this sense, we can call poetry a very primitive thing: it appeals to our essential nature, to the core of our emotional selves. We can also say that it's something that makes this appeal by proving that sound and sense are inseparable.
That marvellously direct appeal, and that unique combination, is what we are going to hear this afternoon."This was the culmination of an exciting few days. On Thursday all the competitors settled into their hotel and got to know each
other over copious amounts of food.
They were welcomed by Sir Andrew Motion who shared his early experience of poetry and gave them a recitation. On Friday, after watching some of the preliminary rounds, Cara went on the London Eye, had a tour of the paintings of poets in the National Portrait Gallery and then joined everyone for a meal at the Hard Rock Cafe.
On Saturday morning Cara recited her poems but she didn't get through to the final. She said, "The judges spent ages deciding who should go forward in my heat and they said it was one of the most difficult decisions as we were all so evenly balanced, so I don't feel too upset about it."
After another enormous meal the final took place on Saturday afternoon. The eventual winner was an 18 year old from Nottingham who recited one of her poems in Middle English which was an amazing feat making her a worthy winner.
Going to London was a prize in itself, but all of the competitors received a goodie bag with all sorts of things connected to poetry, including a Kindle! So Cara would encourage everyone to give the competition a go when it is run again next year.