Power
I feel the power under my hands As I shoot across the fields Over rough ground and then over smooth Through bushes and trees Under the pylon menacing and tall Faster and faster as I change up gear The scenery speeding by.
Suddenly I hit a bump I could no longer read the ground The bike and I parted company The wheels spinning round I stumbled to my feet Dizzy and unsure Grateful that I wore a helmet Then I wanted more.
By Michael Buckingham, 13, who receives Matthew Sweeney’s The Flying Spring Onion. Submitted by Angela Rayner of Trinity Catholic High School, Woodford Green, Essex, who receives the Poetry Society teachers’ newsletter.
Robert Frost wrote: “Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing.” This week’s poem is nothing if not dramatic. We are on the bike with the speaker of the poem, going through those bushes and trees. The poem is more controlled than the ride (though I wasn’t too happy with the change of tense in the final stanza), and the musical ending sends you back nicely to read the poem again.
This is Matthew Sweeney’s final choice of TES Young Poet. Next term’s poet will be Michael Rosen, whose first column appears on April 28.