Calling All Poets

Do you fancy yourself as a bit of wordsmith? Does the Wimbledon area stir something deep within your soul? Could you put a thousand pounds to good use?

If your answer to these questions was in the affirmative then United Press’ local poem competition will be right up your street. The challenge is to write a poem about your town or someone or something connected with it. Entrants can submit up to three poems each of which must be no more than 20 lines or 160 words in length.

Poems can be submitted online or posted to:

United Press

Admail 3735

London

EC1 1JB

To provide a bit of inspiration we’ve reproduced last year’s winning entry by John Ellinger of Oxford below. If you want to get more idea of the level of competition you can check out more previous winners which might help to get the creative juices flowing.

Local Poem Competition 2009 Winner

THE COOLING TOWERS AT DIDCOT

The bride and bridesmaids, look. A child

Is pointing from the swerving train.

A memory I must have filed

And labeled read again, again.

So long ago. Today, once more,

My train passes those plain squat towers,

I watch three women near the door

Of a square church, they bear no flowers.

Though veiled in white, stout matrons still

And faded like a photograph

Of an old wedding day, until

They disappear. Technology’s half

Life seems so short. The towers must go,

They say. Railways will follow too.

Our great grand-children will not know

The secret Didcot sight we knew

And loved, a stately wedding march

Which none but children recognise,

Frozen in time, beneath the arch

Of spacious, grey, indifferent skies.