Launching back on World Poetry Day (21st March 2025), our Children’s Poetry Competition received so many brilliant entries demonstrating the wealth of young literary talent across East Anglia. Today, we are excited to reveal the winners who will be opening The Waterfront…
Seven-year-old Myles from Wymondham, Norfolk, has been crowned the overall winner of the 2025 competition with his charming poem A Friend Like Steve – a heartfelt exploration of friendship through the world of Minecraft.
Myles’ poem impressed our judges with its authentic voice and creative use of gaming language to explore the competition’s theme of friendship. The piece celebrates the joy of shared adventures and companionship, whether building Minecraft villages, slaying ender dragons, or soaring through virtual skies with elytra and fireworks. Read Myles’ poem below:
The competition’s runner-up was 11-year-old Zara from Gorleston-on-Sea, Great Yarmouth, with her emotionally mature poem What Can I Do? exploring the pain of a best friend moving away to Peterborough: “Two hours is far too long, it might as well be two years!” Third place went to Eleanor, 11, from Cromer, whose poem Someone movingly captured the experience of feeling left out and longing for friendship: “Friends are the family you choose, but I’ve not yet been found.”
All three finalists will attend the festival with their families and will perform their poems to open the festival on the Waterfront Stage. Their poems will also broadcast across BBC Radio Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire.
These winners will join a proud tradition of celebrating poetry and spoken word at Latitude, having hosted Poet Laureates, acclaimed writers, and emerging voices on our stages since 2006, including Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy, Salena Godden, and punk poet Dr John Cooper Clarke.
