The finals weekend took place on Thursday 18th- Saturday 20th April 2013 at the National Portrait Gallery in London.  Winners from all of the county contests were invited with a parent or teacher to this exciting weekend of poetry and competition.

Friday saw the first of the regional heats get under way, with all the county winners in seven regions of England competing against each other for the title of Regional Champion. The last of the regional heats took place on Saturday morning before the grand final in the afternoon.

The winner of each region, plus the best runner-up, progressed to the grand final, to compete for the title of National Champion. The weekend saw an exciting panel of judges from the world of poetry, scoring participants on everything from accuracy to articulation. After some amazing performances by all 41 contestants the final eventually came down to just 8 young people. With mesmerising performances of poetry from the likes of Plath, Du Bois, Bishop and Agbabi the judges had the unenviable task of choosing just one champion. After much deliberation they announced the winner. The results are as follows:

National Champion

Kaiti Soultana

Kaiti gave us two amazing performances – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in its original Middle English and Fish by Elizabeth Bishop.

 

Regional Winners

North West: Dafydd Shalders

London: Emily Wylie

South West: Alexander Hall

South East: Brandon Pestano

Yorkshire & North East: Mary Winn

East: Jay Cavanagh

South East (Runner-up): Megan Kerrigan

County Finalists

Esther Simisola Sule, Aouda Tesnime Ketrouci, Jodie Russell, Annie Green, Hazel Mayall, Rebecca Mackay, Eleanor Toal, Sylvia de Luca, Sidonie Ewen, Ben Walker , Anna Winter, Alexandra Tham, Persephone Swales-Dawson, Alexander Hartley, Georgia Harvey, Alex Jones, Ella Yaron, Matthew Reggler, Rose McGoldrick, Maddy Bulliment, Melanie Squires, Victoria Hicks, Hannah Bunting, Nathania Ewruje, Cara Dawson, Ben Lewis, Whitney Muraldo, Niamh Devlin, Zahra Fazal, Thomas Mullings, Briony Keay, Sarah Fletcher and Peter Hanna