In partnership with the BBC, our Children’s Poetry Competition will bring one finalist from each of the six BBC local radio areas to perform their poem live on our iconic floating Waterfront Stage on the evening of Thursday 23rd July, officially opening our 20th anniversary celebrations! And this year’s finalists have been revealed – find out more about our winners below, and read their poems here.
From a piano passed down through four generations of one family, to a child tracing the history of technology through her mother’s and grandmother’s phones, this year’s entries reflect the full emotional range of the theme Generations.
Esme (10), the BBC Essex finalist, wrote about her great-nan’s piano and what music holds when memory starts to go. Her great-nan has dementia, but the piano brings her back. Alexia, the BBC Three Counties Radio finalist, wrote about her experience of being adopted, moving through homes until she found her forever family, and the love she hopes to pass on to children of her own one day.
Connie (11), the BBC Suffolk finalist, took on the whole sweep of popular music from Baby Boomers to Gen Alpha, finding her own place in that story with a Spotify playlist featuring Dolly Parton, the Goo Goo Dolls and Coldplay.
Austin (11), the BBC Northampton finalist, explored generations through the lens of his dad’s jokes, a poem that moves from eye-rolling exasperation to something quietly tender. Lizzy (10), the BBC Norfolk finalist, inspired by Shakespeare’s seven ages of man, mapped an entire human life from first breath to grandparent in a stunning cascade of compound nouns that is unlike anything else in the competition. And Sofia (10), the BBC Cambridgeshire finalist, traced three generations of phones, her grandmother’s candlestick, her mother’s brick phone, her own longing for the latest model, to arrive at something much bigger than technology.
You can also listen back to all six finalists read their poems on Upload with Rob Jelly at the link below.
The competition, which launched on World Poetry Day in March 2026, invited children aged 7 to 11 from Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Northampton and Suffolk to write a poem of up to 200 words on the theme of Generations. The finalists were selected by a panel of judges including Kirsty Taylor, Latitude’s Arts Curator; Luke Wright, renowned East Anglian poet who has performed at every Latitude since 2006; Rob Jelly, host of BBC Upload in the East; and Babs Michel, presenter at BBC East.
The overall winner will be announced at the festival and will receive a backstage tour of Henham Park.
