Congratulations to Billy and Hannah, both awarded third place in national university competitions

Aston University invited Year 12 students of English Language and English Literature to respond to two different texts. Billy achieved third place in the English Language competition; and Hannah the same position in the English Literature contest. Both are photographed with their English teachers.

Below are the details of the English Literature task that Hannah completed. All entries were judged anonymously.

Read the poem below by Mary Coleridge and write up to 1000 words answering the question: What does this poem suggest about identity?

We will be looking at how you:

• Explore ideas in the poem
• Analyse language and/or structural features

Your work will not be judged on awareness of context, and you do not need to include wider critical arguments or references.

The Other Side of a Mirror

I sat before my glass one day,
And conjured up a vision bare,
Unlike the aspects glad and gay,
That erst were found reflected there –
The vision of a woman, wild
With more than womanly despair.

Her hair stood back on either side
A face bereft of loveliness.
It had no envy now to hide
What once no man on earth could guess.
It formed the thorny aureole
Of hard unsanctified distress.

Her lips were open – not a sound
Came through the parted lines of red.
Whate’er it was, the hideous wound
In silence and in secret bled.
No sigh relieved her speechless woe,
She had no voice to speak her dread.

And in her lurid eyes there shone
The dying flame of life’s desire,
Made mad because its hope was gone,
And kindled at the leaping fire
Of jealousy, and fierce revenge,
And strength that could not change nor tire.

Shade of a shadow in the glass,
O set the crystal surface free!
Pass – as the fairer visions pass –
Nor ever more return, to be
The ghost of a distracted hour,
That heard me whisper, ‘I am she!’