Poet competition in memory of Wirral teen enters second year

Dec 14 2011 by Helen Hunt, Wallasey News

YOUNG poets are being asked to put pen to paper and enter a competition set up in memory of a Wirral teenager.

The annual Chris Salmon Poetry Extravaganza is organised by the Chris Salmon Foundation in conjunction with Wirral Libraries and is open to primary, secondary and sixth form students from any school in Wirral.

The theme for the competition this time around is “2012 -This Special Year” and entrants are being asked to consider why 2012 might be special to them, what might make it memorable?

There are cash prizes for the winners and runners-up in each category and they will get to take part in a poetry workshop run by popular Liverpool poet, Levi Tafari.

The overall winner will become Wirral’s Young Poet Laureate for the year and the winner’s school will also receive £100 in book tokens.

Chris Salmon, from Greasby, passed away in 2009 at the age of 15 – just days after complaining of a headache.

His family say the Calday Grange Grammar School pupil was enthusiastic about poetry and after his death they found he had penned dozens of poems they knew nothing about.

This will be the second year the competition has been run. Last year’s competition attracted more than 600 entries, all of which were said to be of a very high standard.

The Chris Salmon Foundation is a charity set up to fund research into the streptococcal virus which led to the student’s death.

Visit www.chrissalmon.org. uk or your local library.

Completed entry forms should be returned to Greasby Library by January 27, 2012.