“Foster Kid Is Poetry Champ”  reads the Sun Newspaper this morning. Another child  from The Superhero Project has won a national award.  The first was a boy called Robert Marston who won the Foyles Young Poets Award earlier this year. And the second winner is Tariq who is heralded in the national press today for winning the Wicked Young Writers Award presented to him by The Duchess of Cornwall and Michael Morpurgo.

The Superhero Project is a series of workshops and art expeditions for young people in care devised and constructed by myself with my agent Mike McCArthy for Ealing.  The project spanned four months.   It is called The Superhero Project because many a superhero are fostered:   Harry Potter,  Lyra Belaqua,  Cinderella , Superman, Spiderman The X men, Oliver Twist Matilda to name a few. Like the superhero young people in care draw on extraordinary skills to deal with extraordinary situations.

Tariq’s poem was written in a Superhero workshop run by writer  Caroline Bird,  whom on her own initiative sought out poetry competitions and encouraged the young people to enter.   You can read Tariq’s poem on the sun website. It is called Tired All Day.  I couldn’t attend the award ceremony as I’m  in a coastal town researching a poem as part of  Poems as Landmarks.