Foyle Poetry Competition Winners

The prestigious Foyle Poetry Awards (open to anyone between the ages of 11 and 17) aim to uncover the year's best 100 young poets from the shores of Britain and beyond.  

Invented in the late 12th century by the Provençal troubadour, Arnaut Daniel, a sestina is a poem of thirty-nine lines that has a highly intricate structure (and is, therefore, very difficult to write). Six six-line stanzas are followed by a tercet. The six words that end the lines in the first stanza are then used again to end the lines in the subsequent six-line stanzas but, each time, in a different and specific order. The same six words all appear in the tercet, with two in each line.