Lockdown, lockdown. It’s all around us. And how are we feeling? Why not try to express it in poetry?

We are running the Farnham Lockdown Poetry Festival and invite everyone to write a poem about being in lockdown – whatever you feel, whatever your experience – and send it to us and we will put together a compilation video of our favourite poems and put it on our website.

Adults and children alike are welcome to send in their poems on the theme of lockdown. And don’t worry if you don’t think you can write poetry; read some and give it a go!

If you want some ideas, listen to this lockdown poem by Harry Baker:

Or this poem by Jim Carruth

the long bench

For the times ahead
when we will be

as if at either end
of the long bench

where distance kept
is love’s measure

and death dances
the space between

when words alone
are not enough

and queued memories
reach out to touch

let longing be a store
of nut and seed

that grows each day
in strange hibernation

readying for its end –
the sharing of the feast.

Send your poems to Lesley Crawley: revd.lesley@badshotleaandhale.org to arrive by February 26. Or you can send them in the post to Rev’d Lesley Crawley, The Rectory, 25 Upper Hale Road, Farnham GU9 0NX.