BUDDING poets from East Lancashire are being urged to take part in a new multi-lingual poetry competition.

Backed by poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, the nationwide poetry competition called Mother Tongue Other Tongue will take the form of a series of regional competitions, which will be split into two parts.

Mother Tongue will see children who do not have English as a first language write about what a lullaby, poem or song in their native language means to them, while as part of Other Tongue pupils will create an original poem in a second language that they are learning at school.

The competitions will be open to school pupils aged eight to 18 from England, Scotland and Wales.

Winning entries will be published in an anthology.