A young performance poet from Romsey is wowing audiences with her way with words.

Daisy Fletcher was a member of the Romsey School’s winning team at the inter-school poetry slam held at the Wessex Schools Literary Festival.

The 16-year-old also took the individual prize and so impressed Matt West, the Southampton Poet Laureate for young people, that he offered her a further opportunity to showcase her talent.

Daisy was invited to perform at a competitive poetry slam, Archimedes Screw, at The Art House in Southampton.

The Year 11 student performed a 15-minute set of her own poetry, which covered many of the issues encountered by teenagers.

It was very warmly received by the audience, which included many keen amateur performance poets, and they showed their appreciation by voting Daisy the winner of the event. Daisy’s prize was two further paid appearances at poetry events, the first in December at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton.

Here's one of the poems Daisy performed at The Art House...

Lick

A liar, she calls me.
The hot tongue whips forth and scolds my cheek,
Searching for flaws in my bruised face.
I stand there, meek.

 

For what can I pull forth against her onslaught?
She is wild, reckless, a demon caught.
I ask a question;
My own tongue slipping quietly through my lips,
She screams at me.
Something inside me rips.

 

For six months, she has toyed with me,
But I'm at fault, is her decree.
My tongue slipped once and she never forgave
Now she pummels it back into me:
Cracking ribs, tearing skin,
She won't rest but for my grave.
Boiling, insipid tears burn ditches down to the corner of my mouth
And I am gone.
A wrath of scorched paper, broken phone, smashed glass,
My tongue gliding over the details of her farce -
Tainting them,
So they bleed out over false memories that crackle in the fire she has started in my soul.
I let it burn until there is only a hole.

 

Then I pick up the ashes -
Try to -
They sift through my fingers like sand,
Leaving only a coarse, smouldering hand.