A Year 13 student from Pakuranga College in
Auckland has won the National Schools Poetry Award for 2013.
Emma Shi won the award for her poem inadequately blue (printed below), inspired
by an early morning when she was captured by the beauty of the sky as it went
from darkness to light.
“I was sleepy, but the sky was so pretty and it was
slowly getting brighter. And that's what inspired the first line—‘the sky folds
open every morning like origami’,” says Emma.
“The situation struck me with a sense of inadequacy
about being human—inadequately blue
is about how small we are, with all our limits, along with the things we could,
and wish we could do—if only we were, perhaps, as great as the sky.”
Emma was one of 10 finalists in the poetry
competition for Year 12 and 13 secondary school students, organised by New
Zealand’s most prestigious creative writing programme, Victoria University’s
International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML).
The competition judge, poet and Victoria University
lecturer Anna Jackson, says inadequately
blue is a very assured poem, from its arresting opening image, through its
three poised and shapely stanzas.
“This is a poem about an origami feeling, with the
image of the origami cranes at once suggesting the care, the attention, the
patience it takes to ‘fold and fold and fold’ and at the same time the lack of
pretension, the artlessness, the simplicity of writing all in the lower-case
about nothing more than a feeling.”
Entries for the Award came from senior secondary
students all over New Zealand. Ms Jackson says she read a tremendous range of
work, all of it showing some promise, some energy or some element of successful
resolution.
Emma will receive $500 cash, as well as a $500 book
grant for her school library—and her poem will be displayed on posters
throughout New Zealand. In addition, Emma and the nine other finalists will
attend a poetry masterclass at the International Institute of Modern Letters,
with accommodation courtesy of the Bolton Hotel. The New Zealand Association
for the Teaching of English has provided support for the masterclass.
All 10
finalists receive a package of literary prizes and subscriptions from the New
Zealand Book Council, New Zealand Society of Authors, Victoria University
Press, New Zealand literary journals Sport and Landfall, and Booksellers New Zealand.
The other finalists are Ruby Solly, Western
Heights High School; Didi Hughes, The
Correspondence School, Tokomaru Bay; Isabelle McNeur, Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti;
Madeleine Ballard, Diocesan School for Girls; Philippa McMenamin, Villa Maria
College; Abigal Mossman, The Correspondence School, Fielding; Holly Brendling, Baradene
College; Bryony Campbell, Wellington East Girls' College; and Timothy Fraser, Hutt
International Boys' School.
The
National Schools Poetry Award has been providing a forum for young writers
since 2003.
|
inadequately blue.
the sky folds open every morning like origami
and i fold out with it, like butterflies, like pretty birds, lifting away, only to be caught in the creases of the ocean.
they say that if you make one thousand
paper cranes, you get a wish. if my fingers did not ache, i would fold and fold and fold until i got not one wish, but a million, and i would scatter them across the sea and kiss the feathers that wash up on the shore each year.
my lipstick stains are stuck on the softest things in the world
like clouds and the boy who didn't say goodbye. he dipped his finger into sunsets and painted my eyes red, orange, fire, and i would spread that burn out across the ocean but my fingers shake and nothing comes out of my mouth but air.
—Emma Shi
|
Shortlisted poems and the judge’s report can be read at http://schoolspoetryaward.co.nz/
No comments:
Post a Comment