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Marriott Hotels is celebrating the nation’s romantic mood for marriage by opening up a search to find wedding poets from across Britain. Poems play a special part in wedding celebrations and Marriott is keen to share the nation’s love of waxing lyrical by creating a collection of poems that reflect the love, romance, happiness and humour associated with the big day. So if you’re perplexed by The Prophet, confused by Cummings, or sick of Shakespeare and think you can match them, there’s no better time to put pen to paper. Enter your love or wedding poem at www.marriottlovepoems.com from 24th February 2011 and keep visiting the blog to read all the poems we receive!

Thursday, 14 April 2011

A Celebration of British Poetry Talent


Phew! It’s been a busy couple of weeks here at Marriott Love Poems HQ!  We’ve had poems galore to read, review, shortlist and then finally pass on to our esteemed judges Fiona Sampson and Matt Harvey.

Fiona and Matt really enjoyed reading all the poems and the found the judging process a real pleasure!  This is what they told us:

Fiona Sampson commented, “Thanks so much for involving me in Marriott Love Poems!  I think the poems we've read have been really attractive and very well written examples of vernacular in verse.  These are poems on a big theme by real, ordinary people and part of our nation’s vibrant community culture. What particularly marked out the poems we read was the unusually high technical standard of accomplishment. These were verses which had been properly made, with a reader in mind, unlike much writing in this - and any - tradition.

Matt Harvey said, “It has been a pleasure to read the poems we’ve received.  I found much material that touched and delighted me and I’m overjoyed that so many people felt inspired to write a poem on the theme.”

Now has come the time to reveal our winning and runner up poets – all of whom will be published in our upcoming book ‘Marriott Love Poems – a collection inspired by love, weddings and romance’, to be released next week.

Before we reveal the poets that have been selected, we’d just like to say a HUGE heartfelt thank you to everyone who wrote and submitted poems.  As Fiona Sampson says, “Writing poetry is a difficult thing to do.  Even the most seasoned professional can feel daunted by the blank page.  No wonder Writer's Block is so notorious!”

A Big Congratulations to everyone who has been selected to be a winner or runner up!

The 10 Winning Poets

East Midands – Hayley Gait-Golding, Derbyshire

East Eng – Louise Wilson, Essex

London – Vivien Hampshire, Ickenham

North – Mrs Denise Jones, Southport

Scotland –Jane Graham, Glasgow

South East – CJ Munn, Kent

South West – Mrs. Heather Grange, Plymouth

Wales – Catherine Smith, Bridgend

West Midlands –Tracy Davidson, Warwickshire

Yorkshire – Emma Salmon, Leeds


The 10 Runner Up Poets

East Midlands – Mrs. Pauline Halliwell, Northampton

East Eng – Andrea Porter, Cambridgeshire

London – Helen Marsh, Battersea

North – James Coghlan, Leigh

Scotland – Martin Richmond, Falkirk

South East – Diana Barsham, West Sussex

South West – Rob Burton, Plymouth

Wales – Craig Astley, Swansea

West Midlands – Nick Williams, Wolverhampton

Yorkshire – Mrs. Dawn More, York


We will be doing another blog post to share the winning poems soon…so remember to keep visiting the blog!

5 comments:

  1. Congratulations to all the winners and runners up. Look forward to reading the anthology.

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  2. sounds like a mammoth task of reading and choosing, congratulations to all winners, you had to be good to be chosen out of so many!

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