Winners of the midlife poetry competition and the winning poems

The entries to our midlife poetry competition covered a wide range of issues and emotions associated with middle age and life for the over 40’s. The competition was tweeted by Stephen Fry helping to bring midlife issues to a wider audience.

The main topics covered in the poems were aging and mortality, themes common in this age group as people realise that have changed since their twenties. However, there was a healthy infusion of humour and a general attitude that things may be different, but they are not necessarily worse. 

There were three categories in the competition: haiku, limerick and freeform (any type of poetry not covered by the first two categories). The best poem in each category as voted by the members of activagers received a copy of The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry and top prize for the best poem received £100 (or equivalent currency) of Amazon vouchers. 

The winning poem was a haiku by Rikka B and was chosen because it received more votes than any other poem in all categories. 

A Stream of golden
Sun-kissed yesterdays exceeds
The cold tomorrows

The winning poem in the limerick category was by Sue O. 

I once had dependable knees
Could party all night if you please
Now tea is my poison
I can’t stand lots of noise ‘n
I cross both my legs when I sneeze! 


The winning poem in the freeform category was by Angela G

Where is it? 

I’ve got a small dilemma, 
I don’t know what to do, 
I need to find my handbag, 
Where, I haven’t a clue, 
My daughter’s coming for me, 
To lunch we said we’d go, 
But I can’t find my handbag, 
And my keys are in it, so, 
I’m turning the house over, 
Everywhere I can think, 
I’ve been through every cupboard, 
Including under the sink, 
I think I’d better ring her, 
Where did I put my phone? 
Of course it’s in my handbag, 
I’m not fit to be alone, 
I think I’ll make myself a drink, 
Some tea would be nice, 
Or maybe something stronger, 
Gin and tonic with some ice, 
I don’t often drink this early, 
But I need one to keep calm, 
I’m getting absent minded, 
One won’t do me any harm, 
Taking ice out of the freezer-
Oh, what’s this – surely not? 
Look what’s in the fast freeze, 
My handbag, solid as rock. 

Congratulations to our winners and thanks to everyone who joined our competition, it has been a lot of fun! There are full details about the poetry competition and the other fun challenges we set our members on the activagers site - see link below.

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Shortlist for our midlife poetry competition is ready for voting

The shortlist for our midlife poetry competition is now ready for people to vote on. You can use the links below to see the shortlisted poems in all three categories. There are also links between the articles so you can view all the categories.

Midlife haiku

Midlife limerick

Midlife freeform poetry

These poems reflect on many different aspects of midlife. Some are funny, some are wise, some are sad and a few of them are quite rude. It just goes to show the different attitudes to midlife, aging and life in general.

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Win £100 of Amazon vouchers and copies of The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry in our midlife poetry competition

Poetry is a strange form of entertainment. It is mainly considered to be the tool of lovelorn, teenage girls or the literary high-brow. However, Stephen Fry believes that we can all enjoy crafting poetry as long as we take it seriously.

Of course, this means having fun, something we at activagers think is very important. The good news is that Fry tells us not to work out what a poet is actually saying, but to take the time to learn a few tools and rules that make writing poetry easier and more rewarding.

We’ve read and reviewed The Ode Less Travelled and thought that we should challenge our members to write a poem about midlife. There are three categories: limerick, haiku and ‘freeform’ (any length, any style) and all the poems need to refer to midlife in some way.

The top prize for the best entry is £100 in Amazon vouchers and the best poems in each category will receive a copy of The Ode Less Travelled. You need to be a member of activagers, the cosmopolitan social network for the 40 to 65 generation to enter and the deadline for entries is the 31^st of May 2011.

Join activagers now and take part in the fun. Joining and ALL the services on activagers are free. Sign up with this link or in seconds via Twitter.

What sort of things are people writing poems about?

The poems just need to explore the different aspects of middle age. We all grumble about a few grey hairs and wrinkles but most people are actually happier in middle age than when they are in their teens. This gives us a fascinating trade off between wanting to stay young and the benefits of experience.

A limerick gives a chance for some fun, haiku for something simple, yet pertinent and the ‘freeform’ gives you free reign. So far there have been a roughly equal number of entries in each category.

You can check out some of the entries in the activagers poetry group here or you can take a look at the full details of the competition here.

The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry

Many of us were scared off poetry at school by suffering long classes trying to work out what the poet was actually trying to tell us. Stephen Fry tackles the subject from a different perspective by looking at how much fun it is to write poetry and play around with words. He takes the hobby of poetry very seriously and goes through a number of rules and techniques, arguing that this is how you would learn to play a musical instrument so why not poetry?

The end result is a book that enthuses you to try out his exercises as it makes writing poetry both easier and more fun.

You can see our review of The Ode Less Travelled here.

What is activagers?

We are an international social network for the over forties who want to escape the kids on Facebook, meet new friends and try some new challenges. We are free to join and ALL our services are free. However, we are not a dating site or a place for boring old farts!

This poetry competition is just one of a number of things we do to challenge and entertain our members. Of course, being a social network our true value comes from our members and the huge range of interests and discussions. We have sites in the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal and even Russia and with our language tools you can mingle on the different sites even if you have very little knowledge of the language.

Join activagers, the cosmopolitan social network for the over 40’s and enter the poetry competition or make some new fun friends Joining and ALL our services are free. Sign up with this link or in seconds via Twitter.