Exeter University creative writing competition

Third Former Rebekah B has won first prize in the Exeter University creative writing competition which all our Second Form students produced work for as part of their study of WW1. Rebekah’s poem One bullet won first prize and was also very well received by the judges who said:

This piece really grasped the senselessness of the original atrocity, and how it escalated to become the world’s greatest tragedy, and how easily that can happen.

One Bullet.
Shot by one gun.
Held by one assassin.
Killing one duke.
One duke of one country.
Bordering one other country
Who started one war.
Involving 32 countries.
Sending thousands, millions
of men,
To hundreds of different places,
New places,
Confusing places,
Never knowing
What would happen next.

One Bullet,
Out of millions
Flying over the battlefields,
Mowing men down,
Buried where they died,
Thousands of broken hearts
And families.
Grieving mothers.
Crying wives.
Weeping children.

One Bullet.
Larger bullets
Targeting towns.
Villages.
Cities.
Destroying the area
Where they landed.
For miles around.
Lists in the newspapers.
Proclaiming lovers lost.
Children gone.
Wiped out forever.

How could just
One Bullet
Cause so much damage?
So much destruction.
So much pain.
For something so tiny.
Insignificant, even.
So small, and yet
So catastrophic.
One Bullet.