The Isle of Man Bank Poetry Trail...

As might be expected, it's starting to get a little busy around Litfest HQ. With the festival just over six weeks away, there's more jobs than there are pairs of hands and it's pretty full-on. But there's one task that we don't have to worry about. One that we're more than happy to leave to someone else...

After the success of last year's collaboration, the Poetry Trail around Douglas is once again being sponsored by the lovely people at Isle of Man Bank (who, let's not forget, are also kindly sponsoring our Schools Day on the Friday of Litfest). In a slight change from last year's set up, the organisers of the trail - the Isle of Man Poetry Society - decided to shake things up a little.

They ran a competition for poets to submit their work for consideration, with the best 20 poems chosen to be placed in the windows of shops, businesses and organisations around Douglas. A cracking idea we agreed. And so the closing date for entries has passed, and now it's time for the judges to deliberate and make their choices for the poems that will be go around the capital a couple of weeks before Litfest starts, remaining in place for a week once the festival is over.

The fantastic news is that the competition attracted a whopping
83 entries. Well, fantastic news for the Poetry Trail, the Poetry Society, Isle of Man Bank as sponsors and Manx Litfest. But for the judges now faced with the unenviable task of whittling those 83 down to just 20, well... good luck folks!

Seriously though, huge thanks to everyone who took the time to submit a piece, to Isle of Man Bank for its much-valued ongoing support, and of course to the judges who are giving their time for what is bound to be an incredibly difficult decision.

Good luck to all entrants - we'll have news of the chosen poems in due course.