The Admiral of the Wensum has chosen his favourite poem about the city's river, who just so happens to also be the Lord Mayor of Norwich.
Cllr Kevin Maguire has been on the lookout for poetry submissions on the theme of the Wensum, for the annual lord mayor's competition.
There were 64 entries in total giving the mayor and the other judges - which included Chris Gribble of The National Centre for Writing, the Sheriff of Norwich, Caroline Jarrold, and poet Shannon Clinton-Copeland - the enjoyable but difficult task of selecting the winners.
Madison, aged 11 from Wherry School, won the primary category with her acrostic entry The Wensum.
Oscar, also 11, of Norwich School, was the secondary school winner with Reedbed Delight.
And Scott Barton won the adult category with Saturday Morning.
The lord mayor, speaking on why the River Wensum was chosen as the theme, explained: “As lord mayor, I am honoured to bear a number of titles, and the absolute best one is Admiral of the Wensum.
“Ecologically, The Wensum is one of the few chalk bed rivers in the country and the consequent alkaline state affects the kind of things that live and grow in the river.
"Pollution, however, can and does affect its delicate ecosystem.
“As lord mayor, and someone who studied ecology at UEA in the early 1970s, I felt that it was incumbent on me to promote and protect our special river.”
Winners were each presented with a certificate and a £20 Jarrold gift voucher.
As well as the three lucky winners there were six others selected as highly commended and they each were presented with a certificate for taking part.
Those six people were: Lucien Eccles; Josie Latter Casas of 8th Norwich Sea Scouts; nine-year-old Ebonie Hilton from Bignold Primary School; Aoibhe Conway, aged 16; Katharine Hall; and Matthew Couchman.
The winning poems
Category: Primary school
Winner: Madison, aged 11 – Wherry School
The Wensum
Water flowing quickly,
Excited children walking next to the river,
Noisy birds calling each other,
Snowdrops growing in the wild,
Under the long curvy bridge,
Murky water that's as cold as snow.
Category: Secondary school
Winner: Oscar, aged 11 – Norwich School
Reedbed Delight
A quiet pinging from the reeds,
A rustle, faint but existent,
A rufous tail can just be noticed,
Flicking, with persistence,
Then a bearded figure, like a tiny brown ghost,
Slips from the curtain of phragmites.
It hauls itself up a sturdy pole of vegetation,
Slinking inconspicuously,
For this phantom of the marsh,
Many will never see.
Category: Adult
Winner: Scott Barton
Saturday Morning
Tat, Tud, Eyn three winding lines,
Of blue up our map combine,
They promise this, our slow egress,
These three who braid the Wensum tress.
You weaving one-way wanderer,
You grass snake, bullhead pondered,
With moon-braced, broad-based tidal slack,
You carried castles on your back.
Through sunshine shallows, oak leaf green,
Blue sky, birch grey, brown trout gleam,
With keen shoaled sight their gilded eyes,
Watch light break golden from the skies.
In rings and wreaths they sieve and shatter,
Galactic clouds of amoebic matter.
And on the bank it's you and I,
We seek The Falls its summer, high,
Our masks are packed, we're desperate dry,
The water is calling and then some.
And before us now the final bend,
We bring with us our souls to mend,
To bind them now at this week's end,
To ourselves in the waters of Wensum.
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