Bloom wins CLiPPA children's poetry prize

Valerie Bloom’s “beautifully varied” poetry collection about family, friends and animals, illustrated by Ken Wilson-Max, is the winner of this year’s CLPE Children’s Poetry Award (CLiPPA). 

Stars with Flaming Tails (Otter-Barry Books) plays with poetic forms, exploring riddles and reverse verse, including a cinquain and rondel in a section entitled Fun with Forms.  

She received the award at a ceremony at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on 8th July. The show featured performances from Michael Rosen and all the poets shortlisted for the award as well as children from schools across the country. Former Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell illustrated proceedings live on stage. 

Bloom said: "Everyone always says they are speechless when they win an award, now I know what they mean. As adults, we know how important poetry is to our wellbeing, how it helps us distil emotions. It’s the same for children. CLPE have been championing children’s poetry for so many years and do so much to help teachers and children access poetry, it’s such an honour to win the CLiPPA."

Though Bloom has written and edited several volumes of poetry for children and adults, receiving an MBE for services to poetry in 2008, this is the first time she has won the CLiPPA, which includes a trophy and a cheque for £1,000.  As part of the prize she will also be recorded for the National Poetry Archive.  

Bloom has said she draws on her Caribbean background in her poetry and believes that poetry helps us make sense of our world. She has described poems as mirrors and windows enabling children both to see themselves reflected and to look into others’ lives. 

Poet Philip Gross, chair of the judges, said: “Stars with Flaming Tails is like a passport to the whole world, and beyond. This is poetry that can go anywhere, from the personal to the planetary, the surreal to the scientific, with its invitation to us all to look, and to laugh, to listen to our feelings, and to think. And meanwhile, almost without noticing it, we’re being handed the keys to the craft of writing for ourselves.” 

Louise Johns-Shepherd, CLPE chief executive, added: “Valerie’s inspiring collection invites children to engage with poetry in so many different ways and speaks beautifully to all realms of human experience. It deserves to be in every book corner and library in the land. After the difficulties of the past two years it has been such a joy to celebrate this amazing shortlist with live audiences and at each event we have seen the enthusiasm and excitement for poetry bubble and fizz.  

“Children’s poetry is such an important but often underrated literary form and we could not be more delighted to be celebrating the very best of poetry for children at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall with such an enthusiastic and engaged audience.”