The Poetry Society has announced the top 15 winners and 85 commended poets in the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2025, funded by the Foyle Foundation, at the British Library, London.

The competition for young people aged 11 to 17 this year attracted a record-breaking 28,344 poems by 10,920 young poets from 135 countries, as well as the four corners of the UK. From these poems this year’s judges Colette Bryce and Will Harris selected 100 winners, made up of 15 top poets and 85 commended poets.  

Will Harris spoke of the young poets being able to see clearly and write truly: “It was a joy to read through thousands of poems of wonder, mourning, rage, silliness, longing, invention, and humour, and pick out a hundred poems which, in combining some (or all) of those qualities, stayed with us. It’s tempting to use ‘precocious’ to describe work like this, but that can feel patronising.

“These are poets who are not just developing their art early but – as with poets of any age and place – seeing clearly and writing truly. Under their gaze, a complex world is made brutally simple, and simple truths shatter into complexity. I can’t wait to see how these brilliant writers continue to transform our world.” 

The top 15 Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2025 are: 
 

Eleni Barrett, 17, Kingston-upon-Thames, south-west London;  Rebecca Cai, 17, Saratoga, California, US; Kai Campagnac,16, Chatham, Kent; Amira Cheung Simhani, 14,  Kingston-upon-Thames, south-west London; Asha Chib-Lewis,16, Sheffield, South Yorkshire; Nathan Graham, 16, Rotherham, South Yorkshire; Aanya Jain, 14, Solihull, West Midlands; Jannath, 17, Stanmore, Middlesex; Hayden Kennedy, 15, Derry, Northern Ireland;  Nakshatra Kothapalli, 16, Sugar Land, Texas, US;  Silas Mitchell, 17, Fleckney, Leicestershire; Zahra Noorul Sahr Hasan, 17, London; Ellanya Sivasubramaniam, 15, Reading, Berkshire; Nhuomachim Umo-Chinda, 14, London; Bea Unwin, 17, London. 

The 85 commended poets are:

Tawhida Aalifa,  Avy Abdulrazzaq, William Aishman, Zara Amjad, Zaara Arif, Zonaira Arora, Florence Ashton, Vivienne Bach Stewart, Abigail Bailey, Amelia Balliu, Eleesa Banjoko, Khadija Bashir, Juno Blake, Eleanor Bowden, Chloe Cam, Clara Capgras, Juliet Capgras, Saskia Carter, Jennifer Choi, Alice Coombs, Eden Craig, Florence Datta, Kaviya Dhir, Andrea Domingo, Georgina Fry, Eve G, Yashita Ghate, Emma Gillbanks, Bonnie Gillow, Ria Goodwin, Georgina Griggs, Georgina Hudson, Brooke Hurry, Amna Husain, Maisie Jane Mair, Nikola Jastrzebska, Amy Jia, Gabrielle Jiarui Dai, Mia Johnson, Elizabeth Kane, Monisha Kerai, Gabe Kirkham Joseph, Alaw Lawrie, Amelia Lawson, Max LeMaitre, Julia Liu, Sophia Liu, Zihan Liu, Evie Lockwood, Vania Madan, Phoebe McGhee, Ellen McPetrie, Isobel Millington, Aaliyah Muili, Iasmine Nic a’ Ghobhainn, Chidu Hillary Okoroigwe, Imogen Oscroft, Felix Ospino Archer, Evie Parker Hornsby, Ronnie Parsons, Taylor Pickthorn, Anwita D Pillai, Aadit Rana, Anabelle Rayner, Anna Rechel, Nerys Schmetterling, Adelaide Sendlenski, Aine Shafiq, Mahek Shah, Uma Shukla, Youngjae Sim, Chiara Stuttard, Khoi Tran, Ena Umpleby, Sharuni Vasa, Neena Vincent, Ernest Wakeford, Katie Walker, Maleeya Watts, Niamh Whelan, Zak Wilson, Katoog van Woestyn, Senoli Yunaya Jayasekara, Allison Zhang, Yu Ziyao.

Top 15 winner Asha Chib-Lewis said: “I was absolutely overjoyed to find out that my poem had been selected as one of the top 15. I really didn’t expect that it would happen and was planning to try my luck again next year. I have wanted to enter this competition for a few years now as it acts as such a valuable stepping stone into the world of writing and The Poetry Society do brilliant work in championing poets old and young alike.” 

Fellow Top 15 winner Hayden Kennedy said that her poem “was written as a way to process the history that I’ve grown up around, and to show that poetry can carry both memory and hope. I want to keep writing politically  and give a voice for my generation.” 
 

PHOTOGRAPH: MADMANN PHOTOGRAPHY