LINES WRITTEN IN DETENTION AND A LYRICAL PACT TAKE
TOP NEW ZEALAND POETRY AWARDS

Chloë Nannestad of Epsom Girls Grammar and Shannyn Boyd of Hutt Valley High School are the winners in this year’s New Zealand Post National Schools Poetry Award, judged by poet Andrew Johnston.

Year 12 student Chloë, winner of the overall award for best poem with Mosaic, admitted at the award ceremony held in Wellington on Friday night that she had written the poem while on detention. This is most likely the first time lines written in detention have been rewarded with a $500 cash prize and a $500 grant for her school library, along with a brand new i-Pod loaded with New Zealand poetry, the recently released anthology Contemporary New Zealand Poets Read, and a package of Booksellers Tokens, a year’s membership of the New Zealand Society of Authors and the New Zealand Book Council, and subscriptions to the literary journals Sport and Landfall. Chloë was surprised and thrilled to receive the i-Pod, which was a last-minute addition to the previously announced package of prizes.

Shannyn’s poem The Pact has been turned into a song and recorded by The Black Seeds and Fly My Pretties performer Barnaby Weir, who selected it from the shortlist for its lyrical potential. The song was given its first public airing at Friday’s award ceremony in a video directed by Rob Appierdo, who later wrapped up the evening in the role of VJ from DNation with a multi-media show that also featured leading Wellington electronic musician Rhian Sheehan.

The Pact will be distributed to radio stations and made available for free download on iTunes and Digirama (www.digirama.co.nz).

On Saturday all the finalists attended a masterclass with poets James Brown, Dora Malech, Andrew Johnston and Bill Manhire at the International Institute of Modern Letters. A day of poetry was followed by a great night out at Circa Theatre where they attended a performance of The Cape, the new play by Victoria University creative writing graduate Vivienne Plumb. The nine runners-up also received $100 cash, a package of Booksellers Tokens, a year’s membership of the New Zealand Book Council, and a subscription to the literary journal Sport.

The competition was open to all Year 12 and 13 students attending New Zealand secondary schools. This is the first year New Zealand Post has supported the award, which is run by the International Institute of Modern Letters. To read the finalists’ poems, and find out more about the awards, visit www.nzpost.co.nz/poetryawards

We are grateful to the New Zealand Book Council, Booksellers New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors, and Sport and Landfall for their ongoing support of the New Zealand Post National Schools Poetry Award