Thursday, July 11, 2013

Announcing the Winners of the Fabulous Poetry Competition for NZ Children


Congratulations young writers, teachers and parents. I received nearly 2,000 poems so you can imagine it was an ELEPHANT task reading my way through them all. It was really hard narrowing it down as there were so many wonderful entries. I think some schools must be little writing havens as they sent in so many good poems.
There were poems about cats, dogs, paddocks, beaches, the moon, wizards, witches, blue, yellow, fireworks, families, feelings, dragons, space, people, places, the world, gardens and a thousand other things.
There were fat poems, skinny poems, funny poems, musical poems, poems that rhyme, poems that don’t, scary poems, thoughtful poems, imaginative poems, surprising poems, sad poems, happy poems.
There were similies that popped and words that shone.
Once I had a pile of 300 to 400 it got even harder. So I want to post these on Poetry Box over the next yearA Poem A Day is what I plan!
I was looking for poems that would be right for the anthology and with some poems the subject matter wasn’t right even though the poems were good. Some poems had lines shining out but the rhythm went haywire in other parts. DO read your poems out loud to check them!
It was so hard picking that Jenny Hellen (the fabulous publisher at Random House) and I decided we needed more than five winners – we have ended up with 20! So that is exciting!
(see blog for rest of story and winners)
  
Paula Green, PO Box 95078, Swanson, Waitakere 0653 Auckland


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