The Off By Heart Performance is a celebration of poetry. Once again our first and second year students worked extremely hard to learn off and perform a poem of their choice. Two students wrote their own poems after having a workshop with Dublin based spoken word poet John Cummins. Each year the standard is very high and this year was no different. Students performed a variety of well-known and new poems for their classmates, parents and staff. It was made even more special as this was the first time it was held in our newly transformed library. Well done to everybody!
The winners of 2016
1st Adam Costello: The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats
2nd: Ellie Duff O’Connor: Midterm Break by Seamus Heaney
3rd Caoilinn McGrath: The Roads by Caoilinn McGrath
Special Prize : Alisha Courtney for writing her own poem The Last Night
The Last Night by Alisha Courtney
He walks along the crowded streets
To find somewhere he can sleep.
He stops to find a place to stay,
But there’s none to be found,
So he stops near a little corner
Where he can sleep on the ground.
He drops his bag and takes out his tin whistle
He plays a tune that sounds official.
He taps his feet to the beat
To the song that he is playing
That is so, so sweet.
After he is finished playing his tune,
He takes out his book and
Starts to read about the stars and the moon.
He reads for hours, hours on end
By the time he’s finished it’s time for bed.
He lies down flat and looks up at the sky
Thinking about how time passes by.
He closes his eyes and thinks of sweet things,
Hoping that tonight he’ll have sweet dreams.
As he drifts off, in his little made up bed
“Tonight I know it’s my last night,
So goodbye my beautiful home,”
And that’s what he said.