Latest edition of Fire Engine showcases pupils’ ‘inspiring’ poetry

Members of the Creative Writing Society have published the latest edition of Fire Engine, a wonderful anthology of poems entitled ‘Submerge’.

This year’s edition has been the brainchild of Eustacia F (M, LVI), who has been a stalwart of the creative writing group since the Fourth Form.

Eustacia said:

This year we received a great many inspiring pieces from all year groups on subjects ranging from natural discord to mental chaos. It has been a pleasure reading and editing the works, and thanks to everyone who have contributed. I hope sincerely that the readers would enjoy the finished product.

Creative Writing Group - Georgina C (G, LVI) Poppy S (MSH, LVI) Charlotte H (M, LVI) and Eustacia F (M, LVI)

Director of Creative Writing, James Fraser-Andrews said: “Eustacia is fast becoming an assured writer whose talents have been acknowledged in prestigious national competitions such as the BBC Young Writers. I have been very impressed by the way that she and the group have worked in a genuine co-curricular way by responding to a variety of activities that have included exploring the Shropshire countryside, Ludlow castle, the experience of two lockdowns and renewed intellectual and expressive energies in the return to school.

Since coming back the group have embarked on meaningful creative conversations with the wonderful work by Salopian artists, iconic classical music, and, as ever, responded creatively to other writers’ work, from the medieval period to contemporary film.

Coming after the astonishing quality of last year’s pandemic poetry collection focusing on the natural beauty and mutability of the school site (which is about to go into an unprecedented second print-run such is its popularity: copies therefore still available), this new sixth volume testifies to the power of creativity that allows us to embrace, reflect upon and live through such moments as we have found ourselves in.

While the turbulence of uncontrollable events may whip up a storm on the surface, in the new anthology we can enjoy the spectacular and intricate coral reefs of imagination that can lurk iridescent below. As Matthew Arnold’s fabulous miniature poem has it:

 Below the surface-stream, shallow and light,

Of what we say we feel – below the stream,

As light, of what we think we feel – there flows

With noiseless current strong, obscure and deep,

The central stream of what we feel indeed.”

Free copies of Submerge are available from the library.