Celebrating London 2012

Winning Words is working with the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) to intergrate both temporary and permanent poetry installations in the Olympic Park.

Tennyson’s Ulysses to feature in the Olympic Village

Tennysons poem carved in athlete's wall - CGI

As announced on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, the Winning Words selection panel have decided that the last line of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem Ulysses will be engraved as a permanent installation in the centre of the Olympic Village.

Chosen for its power and universal appeal, the line by the British poet will inspire the world’s athletes taking part in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. After the Games, the Village will be converted into new housing with a school, medical centre and parklands and the wall will be a part of the lasting legacy for local communities and residents.

Broadcaster Clare Balding, who was on the selection panel, explains:

The aim was to find a line of poetry that somehow encapsulated the endeavour, the glory and the dance with failure that Olympic sport entails. To have discovered that in a great British poem by a Poet Laureate about a figure from Greek classical mythology is so perfectly appropriate as to be almost poetic.

The panel, which also included the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, BBC Sports Presenter John Inverdale and author Sebastian Faulks, chose further poems from the public nominations to be used on other London 2012 sites. These will be announced later in 2011.

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  • Courtney

    Maisie and Courtney think this is a very supportive and inspirational poem which will be good for all the athletes in the 2012 olympics in london this year, by the way we are only ten. We think it will help britain win, go britain ! thank you for reading our comments bye bye .

  • Maisie

    maisie and courtney think that the poem is fantastic