National Mammal Week Poetry Competition 2021 - Winners Blog

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who submitted their poem to this competition for our National Mammal Week. We wanted to show how nature can be celebrated through every aspect of our lives, which is why it is so important for us to protect it for future generations. All of the poems entered in this competition will be displayed on our website in the coming weeks. One in four of our native mammals is threatened with extinction, and many others are in decline, with Britain now recognised as one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Our charity is trying to change this and unlike most organisations monitoring British wildlife, we receive no central government funding for our core work and thus depend entirely on the generosity of our supporters. Please consider supporting our charity today. 

This piece is by our judge Chloé Valerie Harmsworth who is a nature obsessive creative conservationist from Hertfordshire. She expresses her passion for the natural world and its incredible wildlife through poetry, stories, articles, artworks and photographs. Her aim is not just to celebrate, but to inform and encourage – inspiring others to connect with their environment and ultimately protect it. Her book on woodlands is due out in 2022. You can learn more about Chloé by visiting her website or Instagram.

When the Mammal Society asked me to be the judge of their poetry competition to celebrate their 2021 National Mammal Week, I was delighted to accept. The standard of entries to the competition was so high that it made it very difficult to choose the winners. However, after reading each poem several times, I managed to whittle them down to a longlist, and then a shortlist. Finally, I picked the three that stood out most to me, and decided which should be awarded first, second and third. As a poet myself, it was an honour to judge this competition, and a joy to read your beautiful words!

I have chosen 'Snip, Snip, Snip' by Andrew Hider as this competition's winner. This poem sat in my mind for a long time after I first read it, and each time I returned to it, I found more to enjoy and feel moved by. The repeated 'Snip, snip, snip' at regular intervals was cleverly used to guide the reader through different eras and scenes, and link them all together: the past, when the image of a cornfield is cut out of a magazine by a little girl, who imagines looking 'through the eyes of a mouse' from within the picture; later on, when sadly 'most wildflower meadows disappear' and the 'number of wild mammals is cut down'; and a century later, when the picture is on the girl's granddaughter's wall, still inspiring those who look at it to see through the eyes of a harvest mouse, despite all that has been lost. Overall, the poem effectively enforces the importance of imagination and how vital being connected to nature is to us (and has been throughout history) and therefore what we stand to lose if we don't work to protect our environment and its wildlife.

Snip, snip, snip was written by Andrew Hider and is the true story of a little picture in his daughter Amy's bedroom. His mother would often talk about life in the Kent countryside when she was a child and how she’d once written a story called "A Mouse's Day" when she was eleven which was read out to her school. Andrew’s daughter, who is now twenty-five, has inherited a love of the countryside and is Maidstone Ramblers' youngest walk leader, where Andrew himself has been leading walks since 1984.

For second place I chose 'Mustela' by Anna Lauren Clements. She uses such atmospheric language in this poem, describing the weasel as a 'walnut whisper' and 'a ghost in the green'. The whole thing is full of movement and life, and authentically evokes the elements and the environment the weasel hunts in. Both the power and vulnerability of the weasel are shown: 'Blood warms his tongue, a skull crushed in squat jaws. / Staining, reddening, / Weasel’s milky throat. / Cotton-clad meals fuel his hearth all too briefly. // Curled up like a cob loaf, the cold comes too quickly.'

And for third place I have chosen 'The Untameable Shrew' by Izzie Compton. A special mention must be made here as she was the only entrant to perform her poem! This poem had a fantastic, engaging rhythm and was abundant with entertaining, within-line rhymes. My favourite part was '...it preys on bugs and slugs and buds of newly born shrubs / And in between its feasts on grubs...'!

*Please note all poems entered will be displayed on this webpage in the coming weeks*