Chalkstream Poet Laureate Winners Announced

Chalk Streams are one of Earth's rarest habitats and almost all of them are found in England. Of the 260 true chalk streams on Earth, 224 of them flow from underground chalk aquifers in a band across eastern and southern England.

Celebrated in books and paintings for their crystal-clear water and rich plant and animal life (dragonflies, otters, kingfishers, water voles, flag iris, and watercress), for many people chalk streams are the quintessential image of the English countryside.

Now, however, our chalk streams are in deep trouble. Threatened with over-abstraction of their water, increasingly severe heatwaves and summer droughts, together with pollution from water companies and industrial agriculture, many chalk streams are now unrecognisable - flowing thick and brown with sediment, or dried up, with plummeting numbers of plant and animal species.

And so, the Chalk Stream Poet Laureates initiative has been created by Juliet Nolan, with Robert Macfarlane, Linda Newbery and Mark Wormald as co-judges. The initiative invites everyone to champion chalk streams by writing a poem about them, and took to The UK River Summit this year (2024) to begin ripples of creativity.

Juliet Nolan says “All of the poems submitted this year were incredibly varied and show the diversity of memories and responses our waterways evoke in us - and how important rivers are to us. Choosing between the poems was an enjoyable but difficult task according to the judges.”

The winners of the Chalk Stream Poet Laureate competition are:

Sarah Tarlow (adult category)

Sofia Odumboni (under 18 category)

Highly Commended awards went to:

Stephanie Williamson (adult category)

Sue Moon (adult category)

Sally Russell (adult category)

Tim Sykes (adult category)

Yashwina Pudurpalayam Ramesh (under 18 category)