Winner of the 2011 Takahe Poetry Competition Announced

The Takahe Editorial Committee and Takahe Collective are pleased to announce that the winner of its 2011 Poetry Competition judged by poet and fiction writer, Sue Wootton is Christchurch poet, Jan Hutchison for her poem, Reading the Book Aloud. Hutchison wins $250 for her poem.

“This poem is an elegant synthesis of form and subject,” Wootton says of the prize-winning poem. “Images, syntax, metaphors, even the placement of the words on the page, all are integrated into this poem’s living ecosystem.”

 Jan Hutchison is the author of the poetry collection Days among Trees (Steele Roberts, 2005).

2011 Takahe Poetry Competition’s second-place and winner of $100 goes to Susanna Gendall for her poem, Love about which Wootton says, “Not your usual love poem, this plain-speaking poem explores ‘that particular variety of noun-verb’.  Clear-eyed, witty, arch – ah yes, and tender – this is a delightful prose poem with great comic timing.” Love will appear in Takahe 75.

The two runners-up prizes, a year’s subscription to the magazine, go to Auckland’s Michael Botur for Coulda Said and Wellington poet, Jo Thorpe’s Phoebe and her charge at the Café Bella Figura.

The 2011 Takahe Poetry Competition attracted over 400 entries. The Judge’s full report and Jan Hutchison’s winning entry can be read in the current issue of the magazine, Takahe 74 which has just been released.