Emma Passmore, 34, from London won the first prize of £1,500 for her untitled work which was composed and sent on a mobile phone.

Click here to see the winning poem

More than 5,000 text poems were entered into the newspaper's competition before a shortlist of five was selected by a judging panel, which included Peter Sansom, UA Fanthorpe and Peter Florence, as well as the Guardian website's books editor, Justine Jordan.

	Text at 10 16 billion texts will have been sent in 2002 70% of mobile phone owners use SMS 53 million texts were sent on A-Level results day 2002 Text speed record is 40 characters in 27.16 seconds

The five selected poems were then sent by mobile phone to all of the entrants who then selected the winning poem.

The poetry competition was launched last year and comes as text messaging marks its 10th birthday.

Since the first message was sent in 1992 text messaging has becoming a phenomenally popular form of communication - used for casual greetings, news updates and even to send SOS messages.

The text message format puts a limit of 160 characters on each poem, which tests the ingenuity and creativity of the poets.

The second prize of £500 was awarded to Sharon Mann from Leeds.

Third place and £250 went to Peter Wroe from Derbyshire, fourth to Mandy Coe from Liverpool and fifth to Josephine Dimbleby from Dorset.

Victor Keegan, editor of the Guardian's Online technology supplement, said: "Text messaging has created a versatile and exciting new language.

"Combining poetry, one of the oldest literary forms, with texting demonstrates just how creative text messaging can be."

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The winning poem:

I left my pictur on th ground wher u walk

so that somday if th sun was jst right

& th rain didnt wash me awa

u might c me out of th corner of yr i & pic me up