The London Society is accepting entries for the fourth year of its annual Love Letters to London competition, which it describes as “accessible to everyone to celebrate our wonderful, fantastic, infuriating city in prose or poetry”.
The charity, founded in 1912, is offering total prize money of more than £4,000 for pieces of writing about the capital of up to 500 words on the theme of Dreams for London – chosen to mark the 60th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King delivering a sermon at St Paul’s cathedral.
Entrants are invited to express their “passions, hopes and dreams” for the capital and to use their words to “conjure up a brighter future” for it.
There are two categories for children: one for those aged 11 and under, the other for 12 to 18-year-olds. Poems must not exceed 40 lines in length. All categories are free to enter and the closing date is 20 December 2024 at noon. A prize-giving ceremony will be held in St Paul’s Crypt on 29 March 2025.
Dr King gave his St Paul’s address, entitled The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life, on 6 December 1964 to a congregation of 4,000 people, providing what the St Paul’s website calls “a rare opportunity to see him in person”. It was a sermon he had first preached ten years earlier, in Montgomery, Alabama, and went on to deliver in amended forms every year until his assassination in 1968.
His visit to London broke his journey from the United States to Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership of the civil rights movement. St Paul’s had already been involved for some years in the campaign against racism, and six years earlier had hosted a performance by legendary black US singer and activist Paul Robeson.
Early members of The London Society included leading planners, architects and business leaders such as Sir Edwin Lutyens, Gordon Selfridge, Aston Webb and Sir Raymond Unwin, who led and encouraged debate about the capital’s spatial development and built environment.
Details about how to enter the Love Letters to London competition are here. Dave Hill is a trustee of the London Society.