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Close Reading Competition 2024/2025 – Competition Details

Edward Thomas Fellowship Year 12 and 13 Close Reading Competition 2024/2025

Introduction

The Edward Thomas Fellowship’s principal aim is to keep the poet’s work widely read and enjoyed. The Fellowship is delighted to be running the competition for the third consecutive year, with a £100 cash prize for students currently in Years 12-13.

The essay competition is an excellent opportunity for you to explore a poem by one of English Literature’s most celebrated poets and thereby deepen your understanding of early twentieth century poetry. If you’re thinking about studying English at university, it’s also a great way to enrich your UCAS application.

You can find the winning entry and shortlisted candidates for last year’s competition here:  https://edward-thomas-fellowship.org.uk/close-reading-competition-2023-2024- competition-details-and-winners/

 

Edward Thomas’s poem “Gone, gone again”…

 … was written in 1916 during World War I

… illustrates the effects of WWI on the English home front

… contains themes such as the death of young men in WWI, the passing of time, aging and loneliness.

 

Edward Thomas…

 … is regarded as an important WWI poet

… wrote 144 poems between 1914-1917 before his death in action in WWI

… takes a different approach to other WWI poets such as Wilfred Owen

… is concerned with the natural environment – highly relevant to discussions about climate change today.

Key Entry Details

The Poem: You can read “Gone, gone again” on page 3 of this form.

Word count: 500 words minimum, 800 words maximum (please note: entries may be up to 10% above the maximum word count – any words above 880 words will be disregarded).

Deadline for submitting entry: 5pm, Friday 29th November 2024

Format: Please include your full name, the name of your school and the word count at the top of your entry document. Please use a clear font with font size 12 or above.

Submit entries by email: to Robert Woolliams (r.e.woolliams@live.co.uk) Results announced: Monday 3rd February 2025

 

Prizes

  • First: £100, publication in Edward Thomas Fellowship newsletter, one-year free print and digital membership of Edward Thomas Fellowship*
  • Two Runners up: £50
  • Shortlist: shortlisted students named in Edward Thomas Fellowship newsletter and on social media pages (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram)
  • All candidates: one-year free individual digital membership of Edward Thomas Fellowship* and one-year free print membership for your school

*Edward Thomas Fellowship membership includes newsletters, discounted events admission, information on competitions and more.

 The Judges

This year the competition will be judged by leading scholar of Edward Thomas, Professor Guy Cuthbertson.

Some Tips

Your entry should:

  • Focus on a close reading of “Gone, gone again”
  • Explore what you find interesting about “Gone, gone again”
  • Look closely at what is special and distinctive about “Gone, gone again”
  • Have a clear sense of the poem as a whole, with discussion moving between the detail and the bigger picture
  • Be written in a clear and simple style, using technical literary vocabulary when

Gone, gone again

Gone, gone again, 
May, June, July, 
And August gone, 
Again gone by,

Not memorable
Save that I saw them go, 
As past the empty quays 
The rivers flow.

And now again,
In the harvest rain, 
The Blenheim oranges
Fall grubby from the trees,

As when I was young –
And when the lost one was here – 
And when the war began
To turn young men to dung.

Look at the old house,
Outmoded, dignified, 
Dark and untenanted,
With grass growing instead

Of the footsteps of life,  
The friendliness, the strife; 
In its beds have lain  
Youth, love, age, and pain:

I am something like that; 
Only I am not dead,
Still breathing and interested 
In the house that is not dark: –

I am something like that:
Not one pane to reflect the sun, 
For the schoolboys to throw at – 
They have broken every one.