OLYMPIC poet Lemn Sissay performed a poetic project with dancers and musicians across the isle on Thursday.

The Mancunian wordsmith collaborated with arts groups to unveil his Thanet-inspired piece, For Work For Love.

The project, entitled Poetry Isle, is an Arts Council-backed event and part of Thanet council's Warming Words winter literary festival.

Mr Sissay, appointed an MBE in the 2010 New Year Honours, visited Minster, St Nicholas-at-Wade and Margate last year.

He gathered thoughts, feelings and memories from people about the places where they live to inspire the poem.

For Work For Love was performed at Minster Abbey as a song and with dancers at St Nicholas-at-Wade before being projected onto the walls of Turner Contemporary.

The poet was impressed by Thanet's rich cultural heritage when asked by organisers Workers for Art to take part in Poetry Isle.

Mr Sissay said: "It's a privilege to be invited into a community as rich in culture as Thanet.

"Poet laureate Robert Bridges lived in St Nicholas-at-Wade, beneath what Turner said was the greatest sky in all Europe.

"I was proud to be asked to write this poem as it's an honour for new people to discover me and my work."

Mr Sissay is one of six poets chosen to take part in Winning Words, a celebration of British poetry around the Olympic Games.

His work has been commissioned as public art. Several pieces have become landmarks in Manchester, adorning walls across his home city.

There are several references to Thanet landmarks in the poem including Margate's clock tower, where Mr Sissay describes how the mechanic would place a penny on the pendulum to help it keep time in the warm summer months where the metal mechanism would expand and run a little slower.