Brexit poems and dirty limericks: poetry left in boxes across Exmoor to be compiled for book

More than 6,000 poems, including ones about Brexit and marriage proposals, left in boxes over the last three years, will be considered for publication

Following in the footsteps of Wordsworth and Coleridge and encompassing everything from dirty limericks to love sonnets, thousands of visitors to Exmoor have added their poetic contributions to tin boxes, left out for the last three years to entice passersby.

Conceived by the poet Chris Jelley and supported by the Lynmouth Pavilion Project, the venture has been running for the last three summers. It has amassed more than 6,000 poems written by people lured by the boxes’ message: “Draw, read or write inside,/ And leave for the next to scribe and confide.”