The Fourth Fabulous Poetry Competition 2015
The New Zealand Book Council and Poetry Box recently staged The Fourth Fabulous Poetry Competition. New Zealand Primary and Intermediate Schools were invited to submit twelve poems across a range of ages with no restrictions on style or content. Three winning schools (in the North Island, the South Island and in Auckland) will receive a two-day visit from poet Paula Green.
With the help of CEO, Catriona Ferguson, Paula judged the entries and was delighted with the scope and quality of writing. ‘Every selection had a standout poem or two, a poem that crept in your pockets and was so good you knew it was going to stay with you. We loved poems that surprised us, that used language that made us laugh or gasp or just say ‘wow!’
There were a lot of ANZAC poems, weather poems and family poems. The best of these used great detail, sounded good, and mattered to us. We loved the way poems can do and be anything. You can tell when a child has really enjoyed doing a piece of writing and feels proud of it. It shows.’
The results:
Auckland
The Winner: St Cuthbert’s School
Highly Recommended: Good Shepherd School and Hauraki School
North Island
Ormond School, Gisborne
Highly Recommended: West End School and Carnot School in Palmerston North
South Island
The Winner: Port Chalmers School, Dunedin
Highly Recommended: Arrowtown Primary School and Russley School, Christchurch
A poem from each of the winning schools:
My Seed Pod Poem
Steep hills create a canoe
Wide dips form a slide
Brown curves build a roller coaster
The dark mahogany ladder
leads to the head of a hissing snake
Sara, Age 11, Year 6, St Cuthbert’s School
Tree
I
am a leafy, lovely tree
I
am a beautiful tree
staying on the grass
I
am brownish, yellowish
reddish and greenish
I
am a smooth tree
I
can feel the puffy clouds
lying on me
I
want to see
the marshmallowy clouds.
Ashlynne, Year 2, Age 6 Ormond School
Autumn Discovery
The leaf swishes and sways down to the
ground trying to be the first one.
It’s warm to the touch and red like fire.
The veins fade as the sun burns.
The spiny edges protect it from predators.
It lies dead as other leaves fall.
It rustles in the wind.
The bent stalk is like an umbrella handle.
Autumn has changed the weather to a dark
and cool place.
One sweep and a huge pile is gone.
One more sweep and all signs of life
have vanished.
Only the old and rugged branches of the tree
stand by.
Louie Y4, Age 8 Port Chalmers School