The Poetry Society has announced this year’s top 15 Foyle Young Poets of the year. They are: Jennie Howitt, aged 17, from Shrewsbury; Eva Brand Whitehead, 14, Oxford; Sophia Carney, 16, London; Roberta Sher, 16, London; Emily Dee, 17, Leeds; Emily Franklin, 16, Malmesbury, Wiltshire; Lucy Thynne, 15, London; Allegra Mullan, 16, London; Aisha Mango Borja, 14, Oxford; Priya Bryant, 17, London; Cyrus Moore, 16, Tavistock, Devon; Yasmin Inkersole, 18, Abingdon, Oxfordshire; Finn Scarr de Haas van Dorsser, 16, Christchurch, New Zealand; Steven Chung, 17, Supertino, California, US; and Letitia Chan, 17, Milton, Massachusetts, US.

This year’s competition attracted over 10,000 poems from more than 6,000 young poets from across the UK and around the world. Writers from 76 countries entered the competition. This year’s judges Malika Booker and WN Herbert selected 100 winners, made up of 15 top poets and 85 commended poets.

WN Herbert said: “This was a year of film poems, poems bringing obscure words to vivid life, poems about the body, about the turbulent relationships between us and our partners, our parents, our ancestry... In short, it was a bumper year, providing ample evidence that the poem can do almost anything with the utmost economy, intensity, and, for the reader, engagement and delight.”

The top 15 poets are invited to attend a residential writing course where they spend a week with experienced tutors focusing on improving their poetry. The awards were announced at a ceremony at the Royal Festival on London’s Southbank on National Poetry Day. Previous Foyle Young Poets include Sarah Howe and Helen Mort.