Budding Wordsworths wanted

Mayor Boris Johnson talks about his passion for poems:

It's National Poetry Day on 6 October and I’d like to take the chance to champion one of the UK’s least celebrated art forms.

Poetry is in the nation’s blood, it literally courses through our literary veins. From Shakespeare’s sonnets to Blake, Wordsworth, Keats and Donne, and our modern day poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, we’ve always been a world leader in this particular field.

Personally I love poetry. I learned reams of the stuff at school and strangely enough am still able to recite a dozen Shakespeare sonnets, the whole of Lycidas (186 lines of the thing) and the first 100 lines of the Iliad in Greek.

Poetry is also a friend whenever and wherever you want it. I still find it amazing how often a line or phrase will come to mind while I’m thinking about how best to say something.

With this thought, I am absolutely delighted to invite London’s budding young wordsmiths (and Wordsworths!) aged 10-16 to pen a few lines on what they think is great about the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.  For inspiration see this Ode for the Olympics by Bijan Omrani.

There’s a fantastic prize on offer to the winner with a tour of the Olympic Park for you and up to 30 friends and family too. For some more good ideas visit www.london.gov.uk/games which shows 100 ways in which London and Londoners are already benefiting from the Games.

I look forward to reading your entries. And remember the pen is always mightier than the sword!