Introduction Welcome to Ode to Code, an anthology of winning poems inspired by the story of Bletchley Park. As part of a partnership with Bletchley Park, in 2018 The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network sent poet So Mayer off to explore the Park’s archive. Based on their visit, So invented a number of creative prompts for Young Poets Network, challenging young writers to respond to the site’s fascinating story. In particular they encouraged poets to consider the staff’s lives outside of their code-breaking work, inspired by Bletchley Park’s 2018/19 exhibition Off-Duty: High Spirits in Low Times. This anthology presents the nine poems So selected as winners. The winning poems incorporate letters, diaries and archive material, as well as Morse code, DNA, riddles, and ‘found’ or ‘black-out’ techniques to look afresh at Bletchley Park’s story. We were thrilled to receive entries from poets aged 10-25, writing from 13 different countries – from India to Ghana, Italy to Indonesia, Nigeria to the USA, and across the UK. With Bletchley Park’s support, we were able to create a teaching resource for our website Poetryclass, and offer a free day of writing workshops to a local school, Great Linford Primary School, facilitated by poet Paul Lyalls. We are delighted that one of the poems written during this session (‘Hidden Messages’ by Thurab Ali Sharifi) was commended.
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