About 150 people gathered in the Orange City Bowling Club auditorium to hear original poems from contestants who travelled from as far as Queensland.

The open category winner was Bob “Pa” Kettle from Goodna in the sunshine state with his poem, Lichens, taking out the $600 prize.

Andrew Pulsford from Urangan, also in Queensland, took out the novice recital section and Val Wallace from Glendale won the reading category.

The mayoral challenge between John Davis from Orange, Ian Gosper from Cabonne and Scott Ferguson from Blayney ended with a victory to Cr Davis.

The mayors performed poems written about their local government areas.

Cr Davis said although he felt it should have been a draw, his experience from the past two years might have given him a slight edge.

“Although Scott Ferguson said the judges looked delightful so that probably did get a few extra votes,” he said.

“We were saying as three mayors who probably have an art of talking, it’s not unusual to be in a crowd but it is an unusual setting, it’s not in your comfort zone.”

Organiser Len Banks said described the night as good fun.

“What stuck out is they were all entertaining, they all put in a twist of humour,” he said.

“I think it’s encouraging [to see people travelling so far] – it means we’re offering an attractive place to visit and the prizemoney is attractive, because these poets travel around a lot so for them to include our festival is quite flattering.”

WINNERS:

Open recital –

Novice recital – 

Novice reading – 

High school – 

Primary school –