PEOPLE with poetry in their souls are being asked to put it in writing and keep Kemp Hospice's fund-raising campaign on track.

In a bid to add to the £100,000 amassed so far towards a new £2.2 million centre, the Kidderminster hospice and the Shuttle/Times and News have teamed up to seek out would-be wordsmiths.

The search is on for a Kidderminster Keats, Bewdley's answer to Byron or Stourport's version of Shelley.

The best original verses will be selected to appear in a compilation to go on sale in the summer throughout the district to raise funds for the new hospice.

The three that most appeal to the judges will reach an even larger audience when they are published in the Shuttle/Times and News and the poets who pen the top three entries will be awarded prizes at special ceremony in the spring.

The theme for the rhymes, limericks or sonnets is 'sharing' - experiences or events, good or bad - and the panel of judges will be made up of members of the Kemp Hospice campaign committee, a district English teacher and the Shuttle/Times and News editor Clive Joyce.

"I think there will be a lot of people who will be inspired to write poems," said campaign manager John Fletcher. "The subject is a very broad one and gives people a lot of scope.

"I chose 'sharing' because we at the hospice can help people share their problems and grief, but also because it doesn't have to be a morbid or depressing theme. A lot of what we do has nothing to do with death."

Kemp Hospice, which nurses people with life-threatening illnesses, launched its appeal last September to build a state-of-the-art centre to boost day-care places by a third from 12 to 18.

Entries of not more than 200 words should be sent with an entry fee of £2 - cheques made payable to Kemp Hospice - to Kemp Hospice, 54 Sutton Park Road, Kidderminster DY11 6LF.

Closing date is Thursday, January 31.