BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS

A similar absence of sentimentality in the face of death characterises Colin Wadey’s stark poem ‘Moving’, while with attentive detail Jonathan Bradley’s evident love for former colleague, David Selwyn (late of this parish), comes across clearly in his moving ‘Elegy for David’, the second of two pieces in this issue submitted by BGS parents.

Kate Groombridge’s poetic celebration of Bristol showed an interest in place and environment, a theme that unites much of the work, including Jack Williams’s bardic address to the River Severn, Iliana Platirrahou-Poon’s ink-on-paper landscape of a Somerset rhyne, and Leila Cordey’s poetic and political evocation of the voice of the sky.

It was good to be able to publish winning entries from a range of writing competitions. In addition to Anya Clegg’s ‘A Roman Style Murder’, winning entries from the Scholars’ OneHour Essay Challenge Prize also feature, namely Cara Addleman’s argument for original art and Adiyat Zahir’s similarly cogent defence of languages. I hope other departments with similar initiatives feel that the magazine could be a useful platform for the sharing of their pupils’ work. And such sharing needn’t be restricted to competitions located between the four junctions of the four roads that define our site. Eleanor Ward’s successful entry for the English and Media Centre’s annual close reading competition (a national event), also enriches the prose non-fiction section of this issue.

As always, I am grateful for pieces submitted by professional writers who’ve come to read for us At the Junctions, and this issue is graced by poems from Jonathan Edwards and Carrie Etter. Thanks are also due to Ed Hume-Smith for his help in selecting and photographing the visual art, to Ruth Bennett for her skill and expertise in design and production, to all the featured contributors, and, of course, to you, dear reader.

David Briggs