Four hundred poems were received from 200 participating schools -an amazing increase from the previous year considering this was only the second year the competition had been conducted.

National media attention and in particular, the continued publicity given to the competition by Ian McNamara on the ABC program 'Australia All Over', prompted schools from Queensland, the ACT, Victoria and South Australia to submit their pupils' views on the 1985 them “The Place Where I live”.

As a result, serious thoughts were given to making the competition a national contest in future.

Many entrants took great care in illustrating their work which triggered the introduction of the Anne Bell Prize for the best presented poem. The Prize consisted of a trophy, a book autographed by poet/ artist Anne Bell, and twenty-five dollars cash.