Mother Tongue Other Tongue Competition

Mother Tongue Other Tongue is a multi-lingual poetry project intended to celebrate cultural diversity and the many languages currently spoken by young people across the United Kingdom.  Initially run as a regional pilot by Manchester Metropolitan University and Routes into Languages North West, the project has been adopted as a Laureate Education Project by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, and will be rolled out across England, Wales, Scotland and possibly Northern Ireland as Mother Tongue / Other Tongue UK in 2013. The North West project was officially launched by Carol Ann Duffy on 30th January and is open to young people ages 8 to 18. Other regional projects will be launched throughout the year.

Using the Laureate links into national poetry organisations, the project will hopefully have support from a range of well-known poets. We have already secured support from Carol Ann Duffy in England and Gillian Clarke in Wales. Working with Manchester Mela we have identified a number of South Asian poets who we hope to work with as well.

There are two categories to the competition: Mother Tongue and Other Tongue.

Mother Tongue invites pupils to write a ‘remembered’ or ‘original’ poem or song in their first language (any language at all, or in a mix of languages).  They will also be asked to write, in English, a brief account of their inspiration for submitting the piece. This category is judged on the commentary. Collaborative entries are encouraged.

Other Tongue invites pupils studying a language in school to write an original poem in that language. Entries must be from non-native speakers of the language.

You can find out more about the project at www.mtot.org.uk