Kilkenny student’s poem wins national PDST Senior Cycle Poetry Competition

A Kilkenny girl has won first place in the senior section of the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) National Poetry Competition.

Stephanie Dunne’s poem ‘You Are Not Alone’ was written about Covid and lockdown, with her granny Mary Wall in Lisdowney very much in mind. Mary has 11 children, 29 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Stephanie's granny Mary

Stephanie’s poem praises and thanks everyone for getting through this tough year in her own words. She was also thinking of everyone enduring lockdown and all the hospital staff working so hard. Below is the poem in full:

You Are Not Alone

I know it feels like the world is ending,

However in reality the world is mending

Free from the poison of the modern world

The treatment of which we have simply observed

For countless years we have abused

Ruined, overworked and overused

This place that we refer to as home

We have taken control of, called it our own

So one good thing that we can’t recreate

Is that the world is returning to its primitive state

I know it feels like you are trapped

As if your freedom has been attacked

Watching the clock go tick tock

In an ultimate deadlock

Confined to a single space

Enclosed, encompassed, encased

A nighthawk in a cage

Like an actor without their stage

A songbird without their song

It simply translates as wrong

Nowhere to go, nowhere to be

Nothing to do, no one to see

A change in life, but not a tragedy

As we can spend it with our family

I know it feels like you're in danger

You’ve become scared of every stranger

Counting regulations in your head

Memorising them in your bed

Unable to sleep

The nightmares seep

From the unforgiving night to the day

Listening to what everyone has to say

The news reports telling you the virus was contrived

The news reports telling you it was a complete surprise

Turn off your TV, switch off your phone

You’ll be ok, just stay at home

I know it feels like you’re alone, overwhelmed defeated

Your hope has been completely depleted

Lost in a swirl of chronic anxiety

In this unfamiliar society

Watching the ruthless devastation

For which there is no consolation

The ones who are struggling to survive

The ones who didn’t make it out alive

Each day the death toll feels multiplied

You feel as if all your tears have been cried

An issue that just will not be held accountable

And it seems to have become insurmountable

But throughout this crisis

Remember not that but this

The nameless heroes who fight against this pain

Who continue through the incessant rain

The people who fight day and night

So that another soul can see the daylight

The efforts made by each and all

To bring this to a complete stall

The ones who died shall always be remembered

Their lives and memories forever treasured

I know it all seems cruel but you must see

This is the greatest show of humanity

Stephanie Dunne