Wesley College student wins 2013 Cape Catley Poetry Prize

Bayley Johansson, a Year 13 student from Wesley College near Pukekohe, has won the 2013 Cape Catley Poetry Prize, for her poem Colonization.  

There were 50 entries for the prize, which is run as part of the Michael King Young Writers Programme.  Bayley, one of 130 students taking part in the programme this year, attended a master class with editor Anna Hodge, from Auckland University Press. The master class was one of three workshops and four master classes offered this year.

Four other young writers were highly commended in the poetry competition:

• Courtney Bassett, Year 12 at Rangitoto College, for Queer
• Sophie van Waardenberg, Year 12 at St Cuthbert’s College, for patient
• Maria Ji, a first-year Auckland University student, for Organ Systems
• Sophie Gardiner, from St Cuthbert’s, for Suffice to say she has pretty good upper arm strength

The winning and highly commended entries are on the Michael King Writers’ Centre website www.writerscentre.org.nz , and will be published in the literary journal Signals 2013 in December. Certificates and the winner’s book prize will be presented at the Signals launch on December 7 at the National Library, Stanley Street, Auckland.

Jenny Cole from Cape Catley Press judged the competition. She praised the winning poem for its control of language, form and allusion. “Its strong voice and passionate argument made it feel genuine; its direct address was attention-grabbing and confronting.”

She said the highly-commended poems showed control and inventiveness. “Their word choice was arresting and inventive. These four entries were well edited, and, generally, each word was made to earn its place in the poems.”

Creative writing teachers Rosalind Ali and Johanna Emeney run the Young Writers Programme. Writers who have been involved in workshops and master classes this year include Paula Morris, Charlotte Grimshaw, Don McGlashan, Sue Orr, Sarah Laing, Robert Sullivan, Grace Taylor, Albert Wendt and Courtney Sina Meredith. The programme, initially developed by the late Dame Chris Cole Catley, founder of Cape Catley Press, is funded by Creative New Zealand and will be run again next year. Secondary schools across the Auckland region will be invited to nominate students early next year.