Monday, May 06, 2013

This Week on NZ Poetry Box with Paula Green


 Welcome back after the holidays. We had a power cut with Auckland’s storm on the west coast so I am glad to be able to post this now (thank you to all the power-line workers who went out into the wild night). This morning for the first time ever (that we have seen) the water was gushing in waves up the track you walk down from the car park to the lagoon at Bethell’s. The ocean was almost at the car park! Extraordinary!
I am busy reading all the fabulous poems you have sent in for the fabulous poetry competition for children. It is going to be a hard job choosing! I will post a list of the winners later in June.
Next week I will post details of a second fabulous poetry competition for children (you will have two terms to get your entries together!).
Meanwhile over the next two weeks we are going to explore poems that tell stories (or stories in the shape of a poem). Some poets think that is what all good poems should do — tell some kind of story. Personally I think good poems can do all kinds of different things, but I do enjoy poems that have a story driving them.
On Monday I am going to set you a story-poem challenge. On Tuesday I will give you some tips for writing story poems, on Wednesday I will give you some starting points, on Thursday I am going to feature the wonderful Kate De Goldi, and on Friday I will post some of my story poems that you might like to play with.
The story-poem challenge. I challenge you to write a poem that tells a story using no more than twenty lines (it might only use eight!). The story might by true or made-up or a mix of both. It might be something that happened to you (something funny or scary or happy or peculiar). It might be something you would like to happen. Remember you are writing a poem so you don’t have to tell everything and you don’t have to use so many words.
Send your entries to paulajoygreen@gmail.com. You will have nearly two weeks to do this challenge. Send to me by Thursday 16th May 5pm. Include your name, age, year, name of school and your teacher’s name and email address.
Thanks to Gecko Press the winners will get a copy of Friends: Snake and Lizard by Joy Cowley with illustrations by Gavin Bishop (2009). It is a gorgeous hardback book and I love the stories. Snake and one of our very best writers and I think this book should be in every home! The first book was called Snake and Lizard.
 Paula Green
PO Box 95078 Swanson Waitakere 0653


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