A POEM full of spooky atmosphere about a lonely abandoned farmhouse has scooped first prize in the Forest of Dean Rotary Club Inter-Schools Poetry Competition.

The Farm, by Matthew Yeoman, 13, from Dene Magna, took the eye of judges John Moran, Mabel Beech and Norma Jones to earn him a special certificate and £40.

Another Dene Magna pupil, Anna James, took second place and £30 with her poem, The Lake, about the forest reflected on its mirrored surface, while This Was the Dress, by Tabatha Pritchard of Wyedean School, took third place and £20.

Commended poems were The Forest of Dean Sheep, by Andrew Briscoe of Lakers; My Nan, by Laura Hutton of Lakers; Macbeth, by Sarah Hollingshead, Dene Magna; The Stench of Death Most Foul, by Erin Croft, Dene Magna; Space Mountain, by Tim Johnson, Dene Magna; The ABC, by Christopher Jones, Whitecross; and Walls I Scream, by Hollie Ballard, Lakers.

Girls once again provided more entries, 82, than boys, who turned in 57. There were 62 entries from Dene Magna, 37 from Lakers, 27 from Whitecross and 13 from Wyedean.

The prizegiving took place at the Verderer's Court at Speech House when the three prizewinners read their poems to an invited audience before the prizes were presented by Rotary president Philip Macfarlane.

The Farm

The hall of trees stretched their fingers to the sky,

As the dull and gloomy farmhouses slouched near by.

The bubbling brook curved through the ground,

While the noisy silence echoed around.

The buildings hunched round the courtyard in a menacing way,

Were like a pack full of wolves circling their prey.

As I approached the old barn's mouth held wide,

I did not know of the treasures inside.

Old TVs and radios and an old cider press,

Old papers and oil drums, it was such a mess.

The air was all musty, the smell of the dead,

Smells of old sheep's wool encircled my head.

Every step on the ground that I took made me shiver,

In the old lonely farmhouse down by the river.

Matthew Yeoman