Veritas - Young Writers (Britain) October 2024/January 2025

'Veritas' is a poem that I wrote as part of the Young Writers Truth Poetry Competition, which was specially chosen with other contestants' work after poems were submitted in October 2024, and was officially published by Young Writers on the 6th of January 2025 in a book called 'The Beautiful Truth - Dreams In Ink' and is permanently in the British National Archive.

I chose to call my poem 'Veritas' because 'veritas' is Latin for 'truth', and you have to remember, this was a competition, and I wanted to impress the judges with some fancy vocabulary. Also, it sounds like a person's name (in my opinion).

The poem I wrote focuses on the extreme poverty in this world, across the globe, and the immense severity of this international crisis being one of the many heart-breaking truths that need more attention.

'Veritas' is the speaker of the poem, and my poem is written from two viewpoints - of the rich, and of the poor, with Veritas being the 'main character'.

In the second last two paragraphs, the poem takes up a religious aspect on poverty and links to Abraham and Lot in the Old Testament of the Bible and how in the New Testament, Jesus said that it is nearly impossible for rich people to enter the kingdom of heaven, whereas the poor people are more likely to enter the kingdom of heaven - Luke 6:20-21 says 'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.' In the Beatitudes (found in Chapter 5 of Matthew's Gospel), from the famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaimed: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'