Divine Chocolate Poetry

Divine Chocolate is a company committed to fair trade, giving a proper wage to cocoa producers based in Ghana. They have support and input from organisations like The Body Shop, Christian Aid, Comic Relief etc. The chocolate they produce is very good and is on sale in supermarkets throughout the UK.

This year, the company is holding a poetry competition.

The theme is “poems of persuasion” and well-known poet, Adrian Mitchell, is the judge. The idea is to write a poem “that features chocolate or Fairtrade (or both) – and aim to put an argument no one could say ‘no’ to.”

I’ve got to say – I can’t think of a more difficult type of poem to write! It would be so easy to churn out propaganda, or a sermon, or a political tract. But to write a good poem…?

Anyway, I’m up for a challenge and will give it a shot. I don’t know if I will manage to come up with anything worth writing or entering. Entry is free, and the prize is a month’s free chocolate (!) and some book tokens. The deadline is 20 December so there is time to think about how it can be done.