AN aspiring young poet from Tavistock has proven his skills when he beat more than 6,000 hopefuls to win a prestigious and international poetry award.

Cyrus Larcombe-Moore, a 16-year-old student from Tavistock College, was announced as a winner at the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Awards, as he was selected as one of only 15 winners chosen from over 10,000 poems entered by more than 6,000 young poets world wide.

Cyrus, whose poem My Ghost clinched him the renowned award, travelled to the Royal Festival Hall in London last week to receive his prize.

At the ceremony, held on National Poetry Day (October 6), The Poetry Society announced the top 15 winners and 85 commended poets of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2016. Organised by The Poetry Society and generously supported by The Foyle Foundation, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award has been held annually since 1998. It is one of the largest literary competitions in the world and is a defining award for young poets around the world. Writers from 76 different countries entered the competition, from as far afield as Nicaragua, Kuwait, Ethiopia and Uzbekistan.

As a winner, Cyrus was awarded the honour of getting his work published in an anthology as well as winning a space on a residential writing course. During the five day course in Shropshire, Cyrus will get the chance to participate in workshops, enhance his skills, as well as mingle with other poets.

The local lad was first inspired when he read Allen Ginberg’s Howl when he was just 12-years-old, since then he has written poetry nearly everyday. Cyrus said he enjoyed writing poetry that was conversational, and that he was often inspired by comments made in everyday life.

Cyrus said: ‘I first heard about the poetry competition through one of my mum’s friends who is a children’s writer. I entered about five or six poems and I am so pleased and humbled to have been recognised out of so many entries. I starting reading and writing poetry when I was about 12. I remember I would read the poetry books we had around the house and I just fell in love with it.

‘I would say my style has changed a lot since turning 16, I have tried pulling back a bit. I like to write about the everyday things that are relevant to everyone. I enjoy finding the beauty in the things that seem mundane, but at the same time I love poetry for its ability to take the extraordinary and unexplainable things and put them across in the most simplistic way.

‘Emotion is a very hard thing to convey and to me, good poetry is able to take those emotions that have no reason and give them an explanation and an understanding.’

Cyrus, who recently took up rowing after suffering a head injury playing rugby, said that he hoped to attend a university in America. He said that after his studies his dream is to pursue a career as a writer.

‘I have this ludicrous hope and dream that 100 years from now there will be a young person, like myself, who wonders into a book shop one day, reads one of my poems and is able to fall in love with poetry like I have done. I hope one day I’ll inspire someone to start writing and then work their socks off as I have done. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but I really hope one day my poems inspire others.’

Cyrus explained that his winning poem is about the mourning and haunting of a previous relationship. It attempts to convey the utmost invasion of personal space by using elements of the home, including the bedroom, kitchen and garden to exemplify that memories of a past relationship can even invade the environments we deem secure, and the activities, like making breakfast, that are deemed mundane.

‘The poem is about any kind of past relationship, whether that be a friendship or whatever. It is about how you can be haunted in places that are personal and environments which are supposed to be safe.’

Nigel Larcombe, the young poet’s father, said: ‘We are immensely proud of Cyrus and all of his achievements, it is great fun having a poet in the family.’

Tavistock College principal Sarah Jones said: ‘We are delighted that Cyrus has achieved such a prestigious award. We are thrilled that his work, which has always been outstanding, has been recognised.’

Mark Roberts, assistant principle and director of English, said: ‘Cyrus has a vigourous appetite for learning, and his poetry is remarkable. Cyrus manages to avoid the trap which a lot of young writers fall into; often young poets will try to show off with extravagant vocabulary, however Cyrus avoids over elaborating and writes in a way that’s concise and simply beautiful.’

From the thousands of poems entered to Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2016 the judges Malika Booker and WN Herbert selected just 100 winners, made up of 15 specially selected top poets.

WN Herbert said: ‘This was a year of film poems, poems bringing obscure words to vivid life, poems about the body, about the turbulent relationships between us and our partners, our parents, our ancestry. In short, it was a bumper year, providing ample evidence that the poem can do almost anything with the utmost economy, intensity, and, for the reader, engagement and delight. The judges hope everyone will enjoy reading these poems as much as we enjoyed choosing them.

‘The ones we picked showed originality, sensitivity and specificity in spades: they knew with impressive confidence what they were after and how to achieve it.’