SCHOOL children across Cumbria are competing for a poetry trophy offered by the descendants of William Wordsworth.
Entries are due in next month for the Rydal Mount Wordsworth prize – a new prize which will be awarded annually.
Along with the trophy comes a £50 prize donated by the Wordsworth family, who still own Rydal Mount, near Ambleside.
It was there that the poet published the definitive version of England’s most famous poem, Daffodils, and from where his wife, Mary, published the epic Prelude after William’s death in 1850.
Curators Peter and Marian Elkington, who manage the house and gardens, are organising the contest with the support of the Wordsworth family.
Entry forms and details are available via the Cumbria schools information website with a deadline of February 14.
Poems should be on the themes of flowers or trees and an award ceremony will be held at Rydal Mount in March. Wordsworth’s descendants will judge the poems.
A competition staged last year for pupils at Ambleside Primary and the Lakes School, Troutbeck Bridge, was a huge success and the enthusiasm of young poets had been behind the decision to open up the event and run it every year, said a Rydal Mount spokesman.
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