A PUPIL from John Kyrle High School in Ross-on-Wye is celebrating after winning second prize in a prestigious poetry competition.

Alicia Johnson Husbands, took the £50 award in the young people’s category of Ledbury Poetry Festival with her poem Agoraphobia.

Alicia said of her success: “Twelve months ago I was adamant that I neither liked nor could write poetry. So to have one of my poems publicly recognised is an amazing personal achievement.

“Agoraphobia was inspired by the trips I used to take with my dad and older sister to see my grandmother. My poem is told through the eyes of my younger self, when I was too young to recognise the illness she had.

“Looking back, it’s easy to see but it was something beyond my comprehension as a child. It was my intention to capture the feelings I experienced at that time.’”

Sarah Russell, one

of Alicia’s English teachers, said: “Alicia is a very talented student, she has such facility with language and it’s exciting to see her explore her ideas in poetic form. The school is very proud of her.

“Alicia is planning to study creative writing at university next year and we are sure she will go from strength to strength.”

Judge Fiona Sampson described Agoraphobia as a richly-stuffed narrative of a poem, adding: “It’s also evocative and musical in its layering of quotations, speech and inner thought. The long lines are urgent, never dull. A poem that’s full of life but wonderfully artful and sharply observed.”

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Agoraphobia

Backseat of Dad’s car, left side, grubby black leather seats; sister on the right

reading, gazing out the window, humming. The need to impress her.

Why does mum never come with us to see Grannie, Dad? He fiddles with the radio,

Bowie sings about a man who wants to meet me. Your Gran don’t like strangers.

And that’s that.

Memory’s fading but I still see the house. Large, old fashioned, gloomy. Catch

my aunt

round the corner coming up from the orchard, green wellies caked in mud.

Alright, Rob? Alright, girls? It’s autumn, cold. Hunch my shoulders closer to my ears, fidget,

awkward, hide my face. Sister smiles and Dad speaks for us.

Good, aren’t we? How’s mum today, Mags?

Shrouded in black fabric, wispy white hair, observant watery eyes, Grannie doesn’t speak. We stand

in the kitchen, icier than outside, grey floor cracked slabs. Stove looks ancient, blackened,

fridge dull white growing grey. Grannie trembles, spine curving over, blue veins peaking against opal.

She’s offering you a biscuit, take one. Hand’s extended towards me, shaking. She wets her lips, slow.

I mumble, Thank you. Chew it silently.

It’s dry.

Bernie’s out back, chopping wood. Grunts hello when he sees us, unsure. Pass him down to the

vegetable garden, ghostly greenhouse at the end. Walk through the gate into the orchard,

on a downwards slope, apples plums apples plums Here have a plum, love, spit out the stone.

Eat it carefully, cool juice dribbling over my fingers. Don’t bite too close or it’ll turn sour.

I’m cold. Dad packs rough green apples into a sack. I want to go home.

Sit on my hands on the way back, fingers numbing. Daydream out the glass.

Hey, Mr Tambourine man, play a song for me. The fields grow greener as we travel back

down the hills, sky remains a cloudy distant friend. Suck the shrivelled skin on my index finger dry,

brush the edge of my thumb across the velvet of my ear. Comforting.

I’m not sleepy, and there is no place I’m going to.

– Alicia Johnson Husbands