Gold Award for Zaria in the Anne Frank Creative Writing Awards

In June of this year, whilst still in Year 10, current Year 11 student Zaria entered the Anne Frank Creative Writing Awards for 2020, with her poem ‘The dust will continue to settle’. There were over 1,000 entries to the competition and we are delighted to announce that Zaria achieved a Gold Award for her entry.

The judges praised the way in which Zaria explored Anne Frank’s inner experience on ‘an almost epic, spiritual scale’, calling her a ‘born writer’. Praise indeed from such luminaries as Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo.

Zaria, who believes that Anne Frank is an inspiration to us all, decided to enter the competition to improve her writing skills and see how others perceive her poetry. "I never expected to receive the Gold Award and was delighted to receive the exciting news," she says. "This achievement has encouraged me to write more poetry and share it to others."

The Anne Frank Creative Writing Awards encourage young people to write a piece, inspired by Anne Frank, which 'shows how important it is that we all live together with kindness, respect and equality'.

Here is Zaria's moving competition entry.

The dust will continue to settle

The dust will continue to settle and one day the door will open

The family you have loved was formed from the blood of the covenant and from the water of the womb

The lives you have touched will outlive you, hope will outlive prejudice and stories will always outlive time 

When you first took your pen to the paper did the weight of your words register to you? Did the ink feel sacred and holy, did your hands hurt with the gravity of what you wrote? 

The dust that you have breathed is a part of us all, as it was a part of our mothers and their mothers before.

The desire to avenge them is human nature, but it is also selfish.

We will fight the battles, but our arms are tired and our feet are worn

Despite the violence and misery, the mud and the tears there is the bright shiny unbreakable fragility of hope.

Life is harsh and it will remain harsh, we dragged ourselves out of the ocean and fought our way through the rocky terrain

But we also learnt how to sing. What a hug was, we invented parties and art and we wrote the first words.

The musings of a thirteen years old schoolgirl have outlived the hate of a madman. Imagine that, I wonder if you ever dreamed about what your legacy would be. Did visions of the future creep into your mind as you slipped into slumber or did they flutter in like a child's daydream? 

Either way I like to think that you know and that wherever you are it's warm and sunny and there is a field to play in and there are no chains on the fences.

The clay men have and will continue to heal, the masses will be fed. All wounds eventually heal, the scars will be tended to. 

The ink you bled stained the land you crossed over.

Hate is easier to absorb than love, but I still believe in goodness and fairytales and laughter and light and all the mysteries of childhood and all the mysteries of the night sky

and I hope you do too, I really really do.