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Young poets impress Tower prize judges

A talented teenager has won one of the most prestigious poetry competitions in the UK.

Ashani Lewis, a student at The Tiffin Girls’ School in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, was awarded the 2016 Christopher Tower Poetry Prize, an annual award to encourage aspiring poets aged 16 to 18.

The theme for this year’s competition was “wonder”, a subject that attracted 1,100 entries.

Ashani, 17, won the £3,000 first prize for a poem entitled Flowers from the Dark.

The £1,000 second prize went to Safah Ahmed, from Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre in east London, for a poem called Accent, while Sophia West, from Oxford High School, was awarded the £500 third prize for The Awakening.

Ashani, Safah and Sophia also won places at the Tower Poetry Summer School for young poets, to be held in Oxford at the end of August.

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