I would like to paint the earth in full size on a small piece of paper.

See the sun at night in the desert.

I would like to paint the shape of a breeze in hot summer.

The float of a cloud looking down on the world.

Touch the end of the everlasting rainbow.

I would like to paint all the different voices of the world.

When a class is given a theme to write about it is revealing to see the different ways in which the children explore it.

Here Katherine O’Donnell takes an oblique approach and reminds us of both the pleasure and the pain of impossible desires. I particularly like her opening line and the idea of determining “the shape of a breeze”.

By Katherine O’Donnell (aged 10) of Class 5E, Primary Department, The European School, Albert Schweitzer Str 1, 76139 Karlsruhe, Germany.

Katherine will receive Stopping for Death: Poems of Death and Loss (Viking). The poem was submitted by Maureen Flanagan, who will receive the Poetry Society’s teachers’ newsletter.

For Poetry Society events: 0171 240 4810.