Today we’re getting our literary heads on and getting linguistic with a look at Winning Words, a project that aims to “enhance people’s lives through poetry” by leveraging the imminent celebrations with the Games kicking off at the end of the month.

“Using the Olympic Games as a spring-board, poetry will leap off the pages and into the physical spaces around us”.

Already partnering a host of community-based schemes in and around London and further afield, this includes: Get Set Goes Global, Arts Award (“a national initiative which supports young people to develop as artists and arts leaders”) and Bridge Academy in Hackney. Winning Words are injecting a passion for poetry from the grass roots, upwards.

Ultimately though, Winning Words aim to “reach all schools and give a fresh approach to teaching poetry”.

They’ve also played a big hand in the work of the six poets commissioned to write poems for 6 spots around the Olympic Park.

Scour the Olympic Park, and you’ll stumble across a work from: Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy at the Eton Manor venue, John Burnside’s poem “Bicycling for Ladies“, near the Velodrome, Caroline Bird’s poem, ‘The Fun Palace, ‘Wild Swimmer‘ by Jo Shapcott near the Aquatics Centre, a line from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses‘ (voted for by a panel of judges back in 2010) and Lemn Sissay’s 3 poems.

All in all, such details add a rather eloquent touch to this magnificent site, so when you’re in the area, be sure to look out for these monuments.

Winning Words travels further than London though – they are working with seven ‘beacon’ towns across England, Wales and Scotland in a bid to raise local funds so these towns can achieve their goals.