Here is Esther Morgan’s winning poem:

XR

And sometimes I came home from work

to find a scene in the living room of biblical proportions –

all your hundreds of plastic dinosaurs

crammed into cardboard boats or balanced on rafts

made of toy beds, blankets, egg boxes, bits of Lego or whatever

flotsam your imagination had found to cling to –

the whole ocean of carpet filled

with your regatta of extinction and rescue.

It still touches my heart, remembering how tender

you were to each and every one –

from the largest, most expensive Schleichs

to the car-boot casualties – the dog-chewed and sun-faded,

the ones with missing limbs or spines –

how you weren’t satisfied, couldn’t rest,

until we’d allocated each its place of safety

as if you were a little god and these your creatures –

with their small-scale terrors and puny arms,

as if you could be the answer

to all that endless, silent roaring.

Esther Morgan

Luke Wright, our Adjudicator for 2024, gives the reasons for his choice:

I love this exquisite poem. The climate crisis is so hard to write about, too often we sound preachy or dry. Here, however, the poet skilfully addresses this monumental issue through the intimate lens of parenthood, intertwining a global crisis with the deeply personal.

The only direct reference to the climate crisis is the title — XR. It’s a masterstroke and reframes the entire narrative of the poem. What follows is a loving and intimate portrayal of a child’s imaginative play, transforming a living room into a ‘scene… of biblical proportions’, with plastic dinosaurs precariously balanced on makeshift rafts. 

This vivid tableau of ‘extinction and rescue’ serves as a poignant metaphor for our current environmental crisis. The child’s instinct to protect every toy dinosaur, whether pristine or broken, mirrors the urgency with which we must approach climate action. The child's tender, unwavering effort to ensure every creature finds ‘its place of safety’ reflects the fierce, protective love that drives parents to fight for a habitable planet for their children.

The closing lines, ‘as if you could be the answer / to all that endless, silent roaring,’ evoke a profound sense of urgency and hope. They remind us that the fight against climate change is not just a battle for survival but an act of love, a way to answer the ‘silent roaring’ of impending catastrophe with action, care, and commitment. In this way, the poem is a moving call to recognise that saving the environment is ultimately about saving the people – and the world – we love most.

As many of you will know, the George Crabbe Poetry Competition is run by Suffolk Poetry Society. It celebrated its 70th anniversary last year, and continues to encourage and endorse the work of a wealth of poets in our region. 

Details of this year’s Crabbe Competition can be found on Suffolk Poetry Society’s website suffolkpoetrysociety.org  This is also full of information about our lively programme of events.

Copies of the 2024 Anthology, which includes all the winning poems and comments from Luke Wright, are available to buy there too.

Elizabeth Bracken, Crabbe Secretary

Both Esther Morgan and Luke Wright have been recent guests of SBL so this news will be of special interest to members who attended those memorable events.