First prize in poetry competition for Leicester academic

A University of Leicester academic has won first prize in a poetry competition.

Dr Sue Dymoke, Reader in Education in the School of Education took part in the Nottingham Historic Green Spaces Poetry Competition.

Nottingham has been awarded 22 Green Flags for the excellence of its parks. Some of them are also amongst the oldest parks in the country and are protected from development by an Act of Parliament passed in 1845. There is an association between these spaces and creative literature. The Arboretum and public walks, like Queen’s Walk and Elm Avenue, were partly inspired by the Sherwood Forest school of writers, while the opening of the Arboretum in 1852 was commemorated in a poem by Edward Hine, published in the Nottingham Review, 14 May 1852.

The competition sought lively, original and contemporary poems that relate to these spaces and respond to and are inspired by five themes:

§  Entertainments and Celebrations

§  Controversies and Contestations

§  Parks, Wartime and the Military

§  Education, health and hygiene

§  Planting, planning and buildings

Sue said:  'Nottingham's green spaces are such vital part of the city. I've always loved walking through the Arboretum especially - not only for its fantastic trees, dahlia borders and its history but also because it is a city space that's so well used by Nottingham people. This is the aspect of it that I wanted to capture in my poem.'

• You can read her poem here

Sue is a published poet with a particular interest in the processes of writing poetry and how these are taught in schools. She also belongs to the University’s Centre for New Writing. You can read about Sue's publications and listen to recordings of Sue’s poetry below. Her response to the work of artists David Hockney and Francis Stark was presented at the opening exhibition of Nottingham Contemporary.

Sue also has her own blog.

Nottingham Green Spaces is a project run by the University of Nottingham.