BBC competition for local young poets to open Latitude Festival

If you love to write and play with words - and if you live in some parts of the South East of England - then you could be in with a chance of performing at a huge arts festival.

Latitude Festival has been running for 20 years and has featured lots of famous comedians and musicians.

The BBC has launched a competition for seven to 11 year olds who live in areas close to Latitude which, if they're successful, could see them opening the festival.

It's being run by BBC local radio, and judged by a panel including poet Luke Wright, who has a long history at Latitude.

Luke says: "The poems I'm hoping to read are the ones that feel lived-in and honest — something that rings true."

The competition is being run across Radio Suffolk, BBC Radio Norfolk, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, BBC Essex, BBC Radio Northampton and BBC Three Counties Radio.

One winner will be chosen from the areas that each station represents, with all six children getting a chance to read their work on the Waterfront Stage.

The poem can be up to 200 words and on the theme of generations, which is this year's topic.

Poet and judge Luke says that questions of what we're given and what we pass on are really important.

Luke says: "Poetry's one of the best ways we have of exploring those connections.

"It lets us hold a moment still: a grandparent and grandchild talking across a kitchen table, a family ritual handed down, a child trying to make sense of the world their parents have given them.

"The lives that shape us, the ones we step into, and the love that somehow threads through it all."

Last year's theme was on friendship, and in 2024, Newsround followed Anna as she delivered her poem about nature called The Mother Tree.