AN ARTS group has announced the winners of their poetry competition.

HOME Slough challenged aspiring poets from across the town to create their own poem for Slough. With the opening lines of John Betjeman’s 1937 poem ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough...’ still clouding the literary representation of the area, poets were asked to create their own vision of the town.

The competition saw 140 entries from multiple age groups, which were judged by poet Antosh Wojcik last Wednesday, which also marked World Poetry Day.

The under 12 division was won jointly by Salma Ail and Amaan Javed, the 13-18 category by Amrah Janoofar, and the over 19 category by Elizabeth Uter, who also won the overall competition, with her poem ‘Slough Homecoming’.

The director of HOME Slough, Ian Whitaker, said: “The response was terrific. It was positive and heart-felt, capturing the diversity within the town and the commonalities that bind us together.”

All the winning poems can be viewed on the HOME Slough website, https://homeslough.org.uk/, and will be printed in a book entitled ‘Bring Your Own Future’, to be published this summer.