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LAURA THEIS' POEM 'I COMPLAIN TO MY FRIEND WHO HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A TREE' WINS THE CATERPILLAR POETRY PRIZE 2025 – JUDGED BY KATE WAKELING
‘I was hooked by this poem from the moment
I took in its title. There is something so invitingly simple yet wondrous about
the premise: a friend has been turned into a tree. Well yes, why not? From
here, the poem moves softly between humour and gravity. It manages to delight
and provoke; it is playful and moving but never fey (which is harder than it
sounds). There is depth and complexity here – about ecology, about friendship –
but this is all worn lightly and the tone is sustained with great skill and beauty
from start to finish. Picking a favourite line is almost impossible but if I
had to choose one, I’d plump for “She greens at me, wistfully” which is such a
gorgeous image, expressed with such economy, music and charm. I don’t exactly know
what it means – except I also do. For me, this is the sort of magic that only a
poem can accomplish.’ Kate Wakeling
‘‘Winning the Caterpillar Poetry Prize
is an absolute dream come true!! I found out that I had won first prize on my
birthday, and it was the best birthday present I could ever have imagined ‒
especially because I'm about to publish my children's debut, Poems from
a Witch's Pocket, with the wonderful Emma Press
this autumn. It felt like a magical stamp of approval for the kind of
writing I put in the book, so it has made me extra-happy ‒ I
laughed hysterically and jumped up and down on the bed. Writing and reading
poetry for children is such a complete joy, I love it so much, and I have been
a fan of The Caterpillar for years and have discovered so many wonderful
poets through the prize, I still can’t believe I have now joined their ranks. I
am so incredibly grateful.’ Laura Theis
Laura
Theis started talking to trees as soon as she could speak. She grew
up in a place in Germany where each street was named after a different fairy
tale and now writes in English as her second language, for readers of all ages.
She loves roaming the meadows and woods with her dog-shaped familiar and
figuring out how many of the local plants are edible. She has a distinction in
Creative Writing from Oxford University, her writing has been widely
anthologised and appears in Poetry, Northern Gravy, Oxford Poetry,
Rattle, Crannóg, Tyger Tyger, Poetry Birmingham, Berlin Lit and many
others. She has been awarded some lovely prizes including the Alpine
Fellowship, Mogford Prize, AM Heath Prize, Live Canon Collection Prize and the
Arthur Welton Award from the Society of Authors. She was nominated for the
Forward Prize and the SFPA Elgin Award and was a finalist for the Bridport
Prize, The National Poetry Competition, and the BBC Short Story Prize. Her most
recent books are A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things (Live
Canon) and Introduction To Cloud Care (Broken Sleep Books).
Her children’s debut, Poems From A Witch’s Pocket, will be
published by The Emma Press this September and will contain lots of magic
spells, letters, to-do-lists and of course her prizewinning poem!
2nd
prize | Dyslexia by Nicky Hetherington
‘I
had been keeping my eyes open for a really funny and surprising poem and was so
glad to come across this delight. Of course, like lots of things that are
genuinely funny, this poem is also grounded in something thoughtful and
perceptive, and it’s important to note that this poem does far more than just
be funny. Through the joyfully absurd imagery at its close, it expresses
something very particular and poignant about the challenges of living with
dyslexia. I especially loved the framing device of the “dry stone wall”; this
slow intricate craft is an excellent metaphor for writing as a whole, while the
particular weight and labour of the process also conveys something powerful
about dyslexia. And then bang, out of nowhere land the squirrels and
saucepans. I did a proper lol.’ Kate Wakeling
Nicky
Hetherington lives in rural Mid Wales. Publications include her fun-packed
children’s book, Jack and the Dog Boy, and a poetry pamphlet, Cultivating
Caterpillars. In 2019 she produced and edited an anthology of poetry, A
Spot of Poetry for Kids, raising money for Children in Need. Nicky has been
published in print and online magazines such as Iota, Roundyhouse,
Militant Thistles, The Dawntreader, The Society of Classical
Poets, Earthlove; and in anthologies including In the Sticks and
The Anthology of Wildlife Words Vol. 6. She won the Oriel Davies Writing
Competition and was placed 2nd in Writing Magazine’s Haiku Competition.
She was shortlisted in Liz Ferrets Poetry Competition 2020 and was awarded 3rd
place at Word Stafford’s horror writing competition 2020. In 2025 she was
selected to participate in Literature Wales’s Speak Back project, developing
Poetry for Performance, and from which a video anthology will be produced. Nicky
often finds inspiration in nature and the countryside, family, and issues of
social justice, especially of the marginalised or invisible. Or sometimes just
plain nonsense, because, when the world doesn't always make sense, sometimes
nonsense is the only sensible response.
3rd
prize | Food Bank by Lorraine Mariner
‘This
accomplished sonnet packs a punch through such simple and direct language. It
is powerful and moving in its dignity and precision. The use of a child’s
voice, so matter of fact, is skilfully handled and I thought the use of form
here was especially effective: the poem feels taut and controlled, which
reflects its subject very sharply. The suggestion of rhyme which runs through
the poem is beautiful in its subtlety (pairing “poorly” and “normal” struck me
as particularly deft). This was a poem I found myself hankering to return to,
and each time I read it again I found another glinting detail of the poet’s
craft and care, which in turn led me deeper into the poem’s meaning and
purpose.’ Kate Wakeling
Lorraine
Mariner
has published two collections of poetry for adults with Picador, Furniture
and There Will Be No More Nonsense and has twice been shortlisted in the
Forward Prizes and also for the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize. She’s a
librarian at the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre, in London. Working
with the children’s books and on school visits and early years Rug Rhymes
inspired her to start writing poems and picture books for children. She’s
published her poems for children and young people in The Dirigible Balloon,
Paper Lanterns, The Toy and Tyger Tyger. She is currently
completing her third collection for adults which features poems about her Greek
and Irish family history.
THE FOLLOWING WERE HIGHLY COMMENDED:
‘Stanza’ by Carole Bromley
Winner of the Caterpillar Prize in 2022, Carole Bromley is widely published in
magazines, including Tyger,Tyger, The Toy, Paperbound, Little
Thoughts Press, Paper Lanterns, Dirigible Balloon and in
anthologies from MacMillan, Nosy Crow and Emma Press. Her children’s
collection, Blast Off, is available from Smith Doorstop.
Carole runs workshops for children as well as for poets writing for children.
She lives in York.
‘My Lies and Dislikes’ by Helen Dineen
Helen Dineen is a freelance educational author who enjoys hopping between the
worlds of fiction, non-fiction and poetry for children. Originally from
Edinburgh, Helen loved learning languages at school and spent time in France
and Belgium before settling back in the UK in Southampton. Her poems have so
far found their way into several children's poetry anthologies and magazines.
She’s also authored two short books of poems for early readers with Collins Big
Cat: The Incredible Whale and Other Poems and Bodies
Can Do Anything. This year, Helen's been busy working on a longer
collection for 7-to-11 year olds themed around art, which will be published by
Collins Big Cat in September. Alongside writing, Helen also loves a long walk
on a cold day, dark chocolate and making a fuss of dogs.
‘My Sister’s Cactus’ by Vicky Gatehouse
Vicky Gatehouse is a poet and children’s writer based in Yorkshire. She
originally trained as a zoologist and loves to write about animals and nature. Vicky’s
poems for children have appeared in Tyger
Tyger, The Toy, Little Thoughts Press, Northen Gravy, Dirigible Balloon and various Pan Macmillan anthologies.
Vicky also writes picture books. She was awarded second prize in the
WriteMentor Picture book prize in 2024 and won the Alice Corrie Award in 2025. Vicky’s
poetry for adults is widely published and she has won, or been placed in, many
competitions, including the Ginkgo Prize for Ecopoetry. She is a volunteer STEM
Ambassador and enjoys engaging with audiences of all ages at literary readings
and events.
‘A Big Deal’ by Jemima Laing
Jemima Laing is a former solicitor and BBC journalist and has always written
poems. She is now deputy leader of Plymouth City Council with responsibility
for Children and Culture in the city. She has had a number of poems published
and was previously commended in the Caterpillar Poetry Prize for her poem ‘He'll
Never Be’, inspired by Jeremy Deller's artwork ‘We're Here Because We're Here’.
‘Skylarking’ by Kate O’Neil Kate O'Neil writes for children and adults and
has been published in magazines and anthologies in Australia, New Zealand and the UK:
The Caterpillar, The School Magazine NSW, McMillan, Otter-Barry and Emma
Press anthologies, Grieve, Poetica Christi, Heroines, Telling Australia’s
Truth, Chroma (SCWC), Azuria (Geelong) etc. Her collection for adults, Matter
of Time, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2025 and is available from their
website. Kate lives on the Illawarra coast of New South Wales.
‘No Words’ and ‘The True Vision of Sailors’ by Rachel Piercey
Rachel Piercey is a poet, editor and tutor. She writes the Brown Bear Wood
series (Magic Cat, illustrated by Freya Hartas), which has been translated into
twenty-seven languages, and runs Tyger Tyger Magazine, an online
journal of new poems for young readers. Rachel’s poems for children appear in
many anthologies, including a week’s worth of poems in The Big Amazing
Poetry Book (Macmillan), and she regularly visits schools to perform
and run workshops. She also writes poetry for adults; her most recent pamphlet
is Disappointing Alice (HappenStance).
‘Night Craft’ by Melinda Szymanik
Melinda Szymanik, an empty nester, lives in Tāmaki Makaurau-Auckland, New
Zealand with her husband and geriatric ginger lady cat. Always a bit obsessed
with words and books she has been writing children’s fiction for the last
thirty years, including novels, short stories and picture books, some of which
have won awards. Recent books include My Elephant is Blue (Puffin), Lucy
and the Dark (Puffin) and Sun Shower (Scholastic).
She has only recently embarked on writing poetry for both children and adults.
Her children’s poetry has appeared on Dirigible Balloon and The
School Magazine in Australia.
ABOUT THE PRIZE
The Caterpillar Poetry Prize is an
annual prize for an unpublished poem written by an adult for children aged
7–11.
Every year since 2015, The
Caterpillar Poetry Prize has been awarded to a single poem by a single judge –
among them John Hegley, Chrissie Gittins, Roger McGough, Michael Morpurgo &
Michael Rosen.
Previous winners include Louise Greig,
Coral Rumble, Andrew Weadle, Laura Mucha, Fergal McNally, Carole Bromley and
Ciara O’Connor.
2nd prize €500
3rd prize €250
The winning poems are published in
the Irish Times online.
ABOUT THE 2025 JUDGE
Kate Wakeling’s work has been awarded
the CLiPPA prize for children’s poetry and nominated for the Carnegie Medal and
has been praised as ‘clever, funny, inspiring’ (The Sunday Times) and
‘both limpidly welcoming and profoundly meaningful’ (Guardian). Her
collections have variously been selected as Books of the Month in the Guardian, The Scotsman and The
Sunday Times.
‘A poet to watch, her work an April
rainbow of freshness and surprise.’ Guardian
TESTIMONIALS
‘For the legendary Michael Rosen to
have read my poem is thrilling. For him to have chosen it is the stuff of
dreams.' Ciara O'Connor
'Winning The Caterpillar Poetry Prize
brought me a book publishing deal and many wonderful opportunities thereafter.
Thank you with all my heart.' Louise Greig
‘I am absolutely thrilled and
delighted to have won The Caterpillar Poetry Prize. I actually cried with joy
when I got the email. I have won a number of international poetry competitions
with my poems for adults, but I can honestly say this tops them all.’ Carole
Bromley
I was astonished and delighted to hear that I had won The Caterpillar Poetry
Prize.’ Christine McBeth
‘The Caterpillar is such
a unique and inspired magazine. Winning The Caterpillar Poetry Prize is all
shades of wonderful!’ Coral Rumble
‘I think The Caterpillar Poetry Prize is an important award, particularly as
there are so few outlets for children’s poets, and it’s a huge honour to have
won it.’ Laura Mucha
‘Like all of us, I spend more of my
life than I’d like to reading emails. Recently I opened one from The
Caterpillar. Now all I want to do is write something that could make a
reader feel half as happy as reading that email made me.’ Fergal
McNally
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