In 2001, the first year of the competition, entries were received from schools and colleges across the UK. The judges - Andrew Motion (Poet Laureate), Paul Muldoon ( Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford), and Peter McDonald (Christopher Tower Student and Tutor in Poetry in English at Christ Church, Oxford) - selected the seven poems shown here, all on the set theme of 'Blue', as winners and runners-up. In launching the competition, Christ Church has hoped to provide school and college students with a creative challenge.

The development of a writing style, like the discovery of imaginative space, cannot be made to happen; but these things can be supported and encouraged by the kind of challenge which the Christopher Tower Prizes provide, and we hope that the Prizes, which will always be free of any entry charge, which do not depend on further sponsorship, and will thus be awarded each year long into the future, will help both individuals and schools to foster high standards of stylistic competence and to cultivate the conditions for creative confidence.

First Prize

Rebecca Dudley, High Storrs School, Sheffield

Second Prize

Mairi Brewis, St Paul’s Girls’ School, London

Third Prize

Felicity Marks, Beaconsfield High School

Runners Up

Eve Blair, Putney High School, London

Swithun Cooper, Reading School

Charlotte Dickens, East Norfolk VI Form College