Everything we have, we share, From a sense of humour To colour of hair.

From our taste in music To programmes on TV.

But I hate her And she hates me.

Our room was the cause Of our very worst fight.

I hit her with my lunch box And she cried all night.

She wanted it red, So I wanted it blue, But to be quite honest I wanted red too.

I can’t bear to think That we’re really the same, Told apart only By the difference in name.

But really we’re alike So I guess we should agree.

And because I hate her I think I must hate me.

By Kath Rogers,17, who receives an anthology of Matthew Sweeney’s verse. Submitted by Stuart Pickford of St Aidan’s CE High School, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, who receives the Poetry Society’s teachers’ newsletter, a quarterly bulletin which includes features on innovative approaches to poetry in the classroom as well as news on the latest resources, events and issues. For Poetry Society events, ring 071 240 4810.

This poem is so straightforward I almost missed it, but its quiet control eventually won me over. The ambivalence of feeling revealed, despite the repeated “I hate her”, is persuasively handled (“I wanted red too”), and I liked the twist in the ending.

Matthew Sweeney