Winners Ross Peters, Joe Fyans, Thomas Fletcher and Catherine Smith Picture Ref: 77355-02FORGET Pop Idol, Swindon schoolchildren have become Poet Idols.

The Stanza And Deliver Youth Slam is a poetry competition open to every school in the town.

And youngsters from Commonweal School were victorious, with two winning poems, which wowed the judges.

The event attracted 150 entries, with 69 going through to the final.

The four budding poets who won the competition were Year Eight students: Thomas Fletcher, Joseph Fyans, Catherine Smith and Ross Peters.

It took the pupils a week to pen the two winning entries.

The first was a politically-charged critique of the relationship between Tony Blair and George Bush and their involvement in the Iraq war called Curious George and the land of black gold.

The second, titled Walking Window Pain, focused on a child who is ignored by society.

English teacher Anastasia Kimber was delighted her pupils took first prize but said that the standard across the board was extremely impressive.

She said: "They were told to write a poem on absolutely anything they wanted. I was astounded at the ideas and writing they came up with.

"A lot of the poems showed a great political and social awareness which I had not expected. It was great to see that level of poetry."

The competition was held over the weekend at the Arts Centre in Old Town as part of the Swindon Festival of Literature.

It was organised and co-ordinated by Josie Williams ,youth slam co-ordinator on behalf of The Commonweal School, which has recently been designated a performing arts college.

Ten schools participated in the competition and teams of four to five youngsters battled it out in heats to get the chance to perform at the Arts Centre.

Once the judges had whittled the teams down, each school sent just two teams to the main competition.

There they had to perform their poem to three judges, one who was listening for the quality of the words, one who watched the performance, and one who measured the audience's appreciation for the poem.

Mrs Kimber said: "Some of the children have never acted or attended a drama class before and so they all did really well."

She added: "All schools in Swindon study poetry but this was very different and gave the children a chance to work in teams."

The winners received a trophy and cash to spend on books for school.

The participating schools were: Commonweal, Dorcan Technology College, Greendown Community College, Highworth Warneford, Hreod Parkway, Kingsdown, St Joseph's Roman Catholic Comprehensive, Headlands, Ridgeway and Churchfields.

Lyndsay Scanlan