Budding poets' chance to blossom

Flowers is the theme of this year's RGS Hullah Poetry Competition

BUDDING poets are being urged to let their creativity blossom in Ripon Grammar School’s annual poetry competition, now in its 11th year.

The Paul Hullah Poetry Competition is open to students, parents, past pupils, friends and the wider Ripon community.

Judge Dr Paul Hullah, a past pupil of the school and now professor of poetry at Tokyo’s Meiji Gakuin University, explained his choice of theme.

“Iris Murdoch wrote: ‘People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.’

“Your mission, this year, should you choose to accept is, it simple: write a poem that has the name of a flower (or flowers) as or in its title.

“Your poem doesn’t have to be (only) about a flower or flowers. A poem is not only about what it seems to be about; it is always about something else too. That’s poetry’s provocative trick, its suggestive charm (its ‘starting’ subject and its ‘discovered subject’ as the American writer Billy Collins has insightfully termed them), with metaphor so often cojoining the two.

“Use the flower(s) as your starting subject, then go where you wish. Any poetic form. Keep it fairly short. (Less is more.)

“Good luck, and I’ll look forward to burgeoning bouquets of brilliance from the talented young (and even some later) bardic bloomers of RGS a bit later this year.”

*Please submit your poem via email by 9am, June 30, 2025, to Ms Mars at marsh@ripongrammar.com

Category One: pupils of RGS
Category Two: staff, Old Rips, Friends of RGS and anyone with a connection to Ripon, North Yorkshire