Granny in love wins prize for phone text poetry

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - A love-struck pensioner has come up trumps in a poetry contest with a difference: the poems had to be written in mobile phone "text speak."

Eileen Bridge, 68, a grandmother, from Accrington, Lancashire, won 350 pounds ($697) in the "txt laureate" competition, after she took second place with an ode to her husband of six months.

The entry read: "O hart tht sorz, My luv adorz, He mAks me liv, He mAks me giv, Myslf 2 him, As my luv porz."

The retired teacher was only beaten by London law student Ben Ziman-Bright, 23, who scooped the top prize of 1,000 pounds.

He wrote: "Not even the wet rustle of rain can dampen today. Your text buoys me above oil-rainbow puddles like a paper boat, so that even soaked to the skin, I am grinning."

The contest, started by mobile phone operator T-Mobile, was judged by Luke Wright, who took his debut show "Luke Wright, Poet Laureate" to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year.

He said: "Ben was easily the winner because of things like his contrast of the 'oil-rainbow' puddles, which is poetic and abstract.

"Then his last line about 'grinning' brings the poem right back down to earth.

"Overall, there were a lot of funny poems -- good to know Britain still has a wicked sense of humor."