Poem explaining Ukraine war to eight-year-old grandchild wins Caterpillar Poetry Prize

York-based poet Carole Bromley has been awarded the Caterpillar Poetry Prize for “Pry’vit”, a poem she wrote to help explain the Ukraine war to her eight-year-old grandchild.

The annual prize, run by the children’s art and literature magazine the Caterpillar, is for a poem written by an adult for children and is judged blind.

Detailing an encounter between a British and a Ukrainian pupil on the latter’s first day, the American Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate Naomi Shihab Nye described the poem as “calm and seemingly simple” and one which expresses, “with no fanfare, an act of humanity”.

“In these tragic times of invasion and horror for the people of Ukraine and peace-loving people worldwide… I have thought about [this poem] every day since I first read it,” Nye continued. 

Bromley, whose children’s poems have been published in anthologies from Macmillan, The Emma Press and Nosy Crow and her first children’s collection, Blast Off!, by Smith/Doorstop, said: “I am absolutely thrilled and delighted to have won. I actually cried with joy when I got the email. How amazing to have my poem chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye whose work I admire so much. I love The Caterpillar and am always honoured to have a poem published in its pages, so this is the icing on the cake. 

“I have won a number of international poetry competitions with my poems for adults, but I can honestly say this tops them all. [The poem] came out of a conversation with my eight-year-old granddaughter who was struggling to understand about the war in Ukraine.” 

Nye also commended poems by R W Kelly, Ciara O’Connor, Robert Schechter and Sarah Ziman. They will be published alongside the winning entry by Bromley in the summer issue of the Caterpillar.