This year for the first time, the Ledbury Poetry Festival has collated the themes within the poems entered to its national poetry competition in order to gauge the mood and dominant thoughts of the nation.

"If 'The eyes are the window of the soul', then surely poetry provides us with a direct route into the mind." says Chloe Garner, Director of The Ledbury Poetry Festival 4 - 13 July 2008.

This year, 972 poems were entered and the theme of each poem was then collated by a panel who looked at a random sample of 697 entries out of the 972 entered poems. The results make astonishing reading.

You might expect Love or the Weather to be dominant themes but Sadness (caused by death, decay, the passing of time, despair and disillusionment) dominates with 230 entries. (Perhaps the credit crunch is affecting the mood of the nation?)

The next most popular theme is People with 114 entries, although Children and Babies only comes 8th scoring 17 and Family only 9th with a score of 10.

Places and Journeys had 89 entries followed closely by the Environment with 71 entries.

Among the most unpopular themes were Domestic Chores with 1 entry, only one poem about a Dream, 3 poems about Poets and only 2 poems about Friends. Love scored 62, 17 poems about Animals, 8 poems about the Weather, 9 poems about Light and 4 poems about Exile.

The winning poem this year was called Being Fourteen' by Barry Taylor from Stowe in Staffordshire, "A clear winner," according to the Judge, renowned poet Jackie Kay, who is also the poet in residence at Ledbury Poetry Festival this year. She says "Judging is always a difficult process and I spent ages reading and comparing the poems, although the entries were all so different that only thing they have in common is that they are all called a poem. What I was looking for was a poem with a magical touch. A poem that can make you believe something differently or see something completely differently. The winning poem has that quality. It also made me laugh out loud!"

1st Prize Being Fourteen' by Barry Taylor 2nd Prize Eyes Shut by Candy Neubert 3rd Prize Mort Safe by Elizabeth Speller

Barry Taylor wins a residential writing course of his choice at Ty Newydd, the National Writers' Centre for Wales. Ty Newydd is renowned for its excellent writing course, taught by outstanding poets in a stunning location. Barry Taylor is also invited to read at Ledbury Poetry Festival next year.

The Ledbury Poetry Competition is one of the most respected in the country and is renowned for spotting new talent first. Previous winners of the poetry competition include Jacob Polley, who has since published two collections with Picador. His first collection Brink was a Poetry Book Society choice and was short listed for the TS Eliot Award. Mike Barlow won the poetry competition in 2005 and went on to win the 2006 National Poetry Competition. His book is called Another Place and is published by the innovative Salt Modern Poets. Christopher James won at Ledbury in 2006 and his book The Invention of Butterfly is now published by Ragged Raven Poetry.

The Poetry Competition also has categories for children (aged 10 and under) and young people (aged 11 - 17).

1 Sadness (death, decay, despair, disillusionment) 230 (33.58 %)

2 People 114 (16.64 %)

3 Places and Journeys 77 (11.24 %)

4 Environment 71 (10.36 %)

5 Love 62 (9.05 %)

6 History 23 (3.36 %)

7 Animals 17 (2.48%)

8 Children and Babies 17 (2.48 %)

9 Family 10 (1.46%)

10 Light 9 (1.31%)

11 Weather 8 (1.17 %)

12 Religion and Morality 8 (1.17 %)

13 Social Comment 7 (1.02 %)

14 Food 5 (0.73 %)

15 Books and Words 5 (0.73 %)

16 Exiles 4 (0.58 %)

17 The Body 3 (0.44 %)

18 Poets 3 (0.44 %)

19 Illness 2 (0.29 %)

20 War 2 (0.29 %)

21 Friends 2 (0.29 %)

22 Philosophy 2 (0.29 %)

23 Music 2 (0.29 %)

24 Dreams 1 (0.15 %)

25 Domestic Chores 1 (0.15%)