Express & Star

Wolverhampton Literary Festival inspires dozens to write poetry

Wolverhampton's first literature festival has inspired dozens of people from across the Black Country to try their hand at writing poetry.

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The Express & Star launched the poetry competition in conjunction with the Wolverhampton Original Literature Festival, which ran from Friday to Sunday.

More than 100 entries were submitted in a matter of weeks with some poets unable to resist writing several works.

The poems were about a wide variety of subjects and written in a host of different styles.

Many chose to write about their local area, including Betty Taylor's account of the day Queen Victoria unveiled Wolverhampton's Man on the Oss statue.

While Janet Aston created a humorous tale of an employee at the Black Country Living Museum.

Others wrote about happy subjects, such as friendship and love, while some put the world to rights, including Michael Sampson's simple answer to overturning life's inequalities.

But there could only be one outright winner and the panel of judges singled out Liz Freeman's Poets vs Oranges.

Explaining the inspiration behind her poem, the 47 year old, of Bradmore, Wolverhampton, said: "I was teaching seven and eight year olds who were writing poetry and I challenged them to come up with a word which rhymed with orange knowing of course that there isn't one.

"They were very determined and came up with lots of different ideas, my favourite being borange.

"We made up meanings for a lot of their words and it got me thinking and I started jotting down what became my poem which is about the fact that nothing rhymes with orange and the difficulty rhyming presents to poets," she said.

Irene Haynes, 70, of Willenhall, was selected as the competition's runner-up for her poem A Lesson For Life.

Her inspiration was the favourite saying of her late father, Robert.

She said: "You'm gunna lern the ard way was a favourite saying of my father. It stuck with me all the time after he passed away.

"It is still in my head now and he was right in what he was saying – you do learn the hard way.

"And this is about learning not to ignore your parents while you have got them. You must make clear that you love them," she said.

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