Sri Lankan teenager crowned Foyle Young Poet of the Year

Ellanya Sivasubramaniam, 15, from Reading, Berkshire, UK has been recognised as one of the winners of the prestigious Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, Tamil Guardian reported.

Sivasubramaniam was selected as one of the Top 15 winners for her poem “The Girls Who Grow Antlers”, out of an extraordinary 28,344 poems submitted from 135 countries. The annual competition, organised by The Poetry Society and funded by The Foyle Foundation, is one of the most competitive literary awards for young writers aged 11 to 17.

Speaking after the announcement, Ellanya described her win as “surreal” and “affirming.”

“Winning the Foyle Young Poets competition feels both surreal and affirming,” she said. “I’ll never forget getting the call on my way back from school; I was completely star-struck and could hardly believe it was real.”

The ceremony took place at the British Library in London recently, where the winners were officially honoured. The young poet will now join a week-long residential writing course at The Hurst in Shropshire, alongside other awardees, and will have her poem published in a printed anthology distributed to schools and libraries across the UK next spring.

The competition drew entries from countries as far apart as Botswana, Fiji, Vietnam, Venezuela, and the UK, with poems exploring themes of politics, art, language, identity, and belonging.

Now in its 27th year, the Foyle Young Poets Award continues to be a launchpad for new literary voices, with past winners going on to become published poets and authors.