SOME poets go a lifetime without receiving any recognition for their work, but 13-year-old Jasmine Burgess won’t be one of them after she picked up two awards in one day.

The Cowley schoolgirl took second place in the John Betjeman Poetry Competition for Young People before beating 7,602 other entrants from 78 countries to win the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award.

The awards ceremonies, which were held on National Poetry Day on October 2, took place in London and Jasmine has been rewarded with a trip to Paris and the publication of her poem The Sea, which won the Foyle award.

The Oxford Spires Academy pupil said: “It was just so amazing because I never really thought I would win.

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“I was just entering because you can’t lose anything.

“I wasn’t expecting anything of the sort and it was really amazing and surprising that I had won it.”

Jasmine was handed second prize in the John Betjeman Poetry Competition at London’s St Pancras Station, where there is a statue of the poet, for her poem My Oxford.

She found out before visiting London that she had taken second place in the competition, but had no idea she had been chosen as the winner of the Foyle Young Poet of the Year Award.

She said: “I found out about the Betjeman prize when I was just at home, bored and trying to do my homework.

“Then the phone rang and I found out I had got second place which was amazing.”

After the ceremony at St Pancras, Jasmine travelled to the Southbank Centre, where The Sea was handed first place in the Foyle award.

She said: “I have been writing poetry for quite a long time, since I was in Year Three in school.

“I like how it is a way to express yourself and it seems very personal and a way to say things that you want instead of bottling up your emotions.’’

The successful poem –The Sea

I know why the sea is a black dog –

And I know the velocity of his heartbeat –

He is playful, loyal, with a panting grin

That makes you grin back.

He lunges upwards to swallow us,

Thrashing fists into rocks in frustration,

As the lead strains him back.

I know why the sea tastes of black olives,

I know the stinging bees as you swallow,

The slap that would freeze ice.

I do not like the sea,

People think it is light blue,

Floaty dress fabric, but I know.

We try to dance across the surface,

With a million miles stretching below us,

Hungry and waiting.

I know each note in the sea’s swirling symphony,

And I know why the melody repeats to infinity.

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