Poetry competition winners for 2006

Auckland City Libraries poetry competition

Celebrating Montana Poetry Day
July 21, 2006

There were 350 entries in this year's Auckland City Libraries’ poetry competition.

Check out a slideshow of the winning poems (pdf 1044kb)

We thank Iain Sharp, poet, critic and librarian, for taking on the difficult task of selecting the winners. Here are his comments and the winning poems.

Children | Teens | Adults

Children

First place:

Second place:

Third place:

Shortlisted

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Teens

First place:

Second place:

Third place:

Shortlisted

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Adults

First place:

Second place:

Third place:

Shortlisted

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Children

First prize:

Autumn walking

Squish, squash, squelch,
Went the mud under my boots.
Crack, crackle, crack
Went the autumn leaves under my boots.

Flutter, flitter, flap,
Went the leaves off the trees.
I thought I saw one leaf dancing
Swirling round and round.
I felt happy walking with my mum.

Flutter, flitter, flap
Crack, crackle, crack
Squish, squash, squelch
In the woods in autumn with my mum.

--Simon Winstanley

Second prize:

Night

Night murmurs,
Shadowing the world
With gentle hands
Letting the moon gleam like a diamond

Night glares,
At the earth below him
Disappearing,
Into the gloom of the night

Night yells,
Coal-black clouds form
As the giant releases its anger.

Night cries,
Huge, dark daggers from the sky
That plunge and CRACK on the earth

Night ROARS,
Breathing wind
That whirls through the air.
WOOSH!
Whipping leaves off trees.

Night dies,
Leaving earth in peace,
From its bitter storms,
Letting the sun suddenly glimmer in the sky.

--Alina Savstyuk

Third prize:

My favourite food

Chocolate cake with cream on the plate
Sticky buns for the little ones
Yummy hot chips between my lips
Hot dates for goodness sake
Yummy pie with gravy on the side
Ice cream cake with waffles on my plate
All this is yummy and sits very well in my tummy.

--Lara Sell

Shortlisted

Umbrella man

Midnight on Tuesday a man would arrive
Passing straight through our front drive.

As he walked barefeet
Down our street
Twirling a light blue umbrella
Wearing nothing but, poor fella,
A ragged tuxedo
Without a thought in his mind, Umbrella Man.

--Andrew Winstanley

The Secret of the Orange

To travel in the orange you need to change your size,
And I would recommend that you wear a disguise.
For inside the world of the orange,
The smaller form is the mandarin,
But to travel the juicy canal you need to pass the skin.
Inside this dangerous world,
Many dangers may be found,
Like drowning in a juice canal or bacteria may be found.
But the most precious thing of all is no not the delicious flesh
it is the seed in the middle it promises more flesh
We have explored many secrets of the orange
Still more may be found
but for now
Goodbye pound of oranges

--Ryan Cary-Wright

Never be TOO careful

Never be TOO careful,
Or your life is not worth living
Never be TOO careful,
As it's all about giving

Never be TOO careful,
When you are doing stuff
Never be TOO careful,
You don't want to get tough

Never be TOO careful,
Especially when you are already careful
It may just take over your most unfearful thing of all!

--Shan He

Daisy white

Daisy white calm seems the light.
Flowing creamy and coolly dreamy
Dancing, swaying in the mischievous breeze.
On a warm springs morning there is no chance .
I will freeze

--Kate Smallwood

Untitled

(Stomp stomp stomp) what's that noise?
(Stomp stomp stomp) who's that?
(Stomp stomp stomp) Who's at the door?

a dino dino dino dinosaur
what dino dino dinosaur is it?

its aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAA T-rex

--Isabella Charlotte Raven-Pickering

Grey

Ghosts of the past
Twist into shadow
Curl and lick at life
Swirl into the night
Wielding the knife
That will take the light
Into the realm
Of the Grey

--Jung Shaan Lee

The star cloak

Shining, shimmering, as light as a feather,
the Star Cloak rested on my shoulders.
Each step I took was full of the feelings of excitement.
Finally, I used my last wish
It was the golden star, I had always wanted.
Once I had chosen, the hair above me started to swirl, 
the stars around me got more beautiful, more golden than ever.
Finally, everything stopped.
The star cloak was just its normal golden self again,
I looked around.
Suddenly, I saw my wish had come true.
For just inside the Realm, was my final wish.
All the magic in the star cloak had finally been used.

--Henry Grey

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Teens

First prize:

That summer

We could have been on a postcard
A tropical beach
And I wouldn’t have noticed.
It was raining
My hair got wet
We drew things in the
Sand
And stuck in feathers.
Back in the sun
I had homework
I said stupid things
You drew a shape
Labelled it ‘OBLONG’
‘Rectangle’ I murmured
and you changed it
But you weren’t changed.

We sat in the dunes
Talked about a millions things
Then it was silent.
The tide kissed
Our toes
I saw a dead fish
On the shore
And I realized
That it was different now
I had this yellow
Flower behind my ear.

--Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle

Second prize:

The morning after

All the love and time
I kneaded and shaped
Into those potato dumplings last night
Didn’t stop them turning black
In the fridge.

I empty the plate
Slowly
Dropping into the compost
Atop the teabags
and the cracked eggshells of my life.

I glimpse on the lawn
Mushrooms
Newly sprouted – overnight.
Isn’t it strange
How they just seem to appear
And when you knock them down
They just grow back.

because
It’s all below the surface
You cannot see
The threads of the intertwining
Mycelium
Searching for something
To feed off.

--Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle

Third prize:

Fruit

Apple is a tidy girl
She always looks immaculate
And her room is never as messy as mine

Cherry is voluptuous and knows it
She is flirty
And daring

Banana is a clown
He is always peeling with jokes
His jokes go off after a while

Carrot is a stubborn boy
He makes you feel ‘grate’
And has a real aptitude for rabbits

Potato is tough
But only on the outside
People either love him or hate him

Kumara is born of a culture
She gets riles when her peers disrespect this
Otherwise she is perfectly sweet

--Louise Grey

Shortlisted

Canon et roses

on strige  a vampire
faire saigner  to draw blood
de sang-froid in cold blood
son sang se glaça his blood ran cold
j'ai sanguinaire i'm blood thirst
yexsangue, anémié bloodless 

couleur de rose the color of rose
athée ciels godless sky
sang les murs blood walls
etre seul au monde to be alone in this world
rein au monde nothing in this world

stupéfaction daze
mort die
au milieu de la nuit dead of the night

feuilles tombées fallen leaves
l' humanité déchue fallen humanity
les mort the fallen
fausse false
fausseté falseness
imbécile fool

laisser ignorer to keep in ignorance
destin fate
bonté goodness
bonheur happiness
l'enfer hell

CANON ET ROSES GUNS AND ROSES

--Sherry Han

                                                I’ll call you tonight

                                                 I’ll call you tonight
                            The words run through my head as I sit by the phone
                                                        Waiting
                       I know when I answer, problems will arise, complaints will be
                                                          made
                       If I’m lucky, her tears will bleed through my earpiece, and I’ll
                                      wipe them off with my gentle solution
                                                  She looks to me

                              She is so imposing, sometimes it scares me
                          Many bow down to her like she’s some kind of queen
                   Others scurry about trying to complete her outrageous demands
                                                         Not me
                                          She is evil. She is my friend

                   She builds her own tracks to hell, then runs her train off the rails
                                                 trying to get there
                                                 I’m always waiting
                                     Waiting to clean up the wreckage

                                                 I’ll call you tonight
                                                   I know she will
                                                   I am her queen
                                                   She needs me
                                             I am her heart, her core
                                    The wait is long, it does not bother me

                    Though sometimes it creeps up on me, like ivy might, up my leg,
                                                   through my skin
                                                     Into my heart
                        I am not a jealous person, but it will not ease ‘till she calls
                             Secretly I wish for a tragedy, where I am the hero
                         And rescue her from the Devils grasp, the bastard’s lies

                                We shall be one forever, I am not expendable
                                              That is what I tell myself
                                                 I am not expendable
                                                  I’ll call you tonight
                                                      I’ll be waiting

--Brooke Mackenzie

A whale somewhere

Thud.
Hardly felt, yet
my colossal body suddenly
refuses to sail through
the concentrated medium
of water,
my abode.

Red.
My meal of krill
like blankets spread ahead
is around me?
No.
The rawness of the iron
familiarises itself
as blood of mine.

Torn
out from the sea
Prey
has been predated.

Light.
Clear still images
of the sky. 
New to me.

Reservior
of scarlet builds around me. 
The pain intensity.
New to me.

Lust.
I see
in human eyes.
Desire for slaughter.

Liquid
seeps out
from holes
as blocks of me
are carved out
and I observe.

Pain
is stunning me.
Again.
Again.
Heart
pounds softer.
Slower. 

Sleep
seems inevitable.

Another
song is lost.

--Purita Mok

Jigsaw poem

on hills of ashes
he found a cloud
of tears
crumpled boxes
dragged behind windows
but she found the reflection
of twisted peaks
of scarlet mouths
of shimmering sand
wait on the shadowed tiles
fade in
to
dense slashes
of silence

--Isabella McDermott

Tide-marks

this sixteenth winter
I come to the very edge
where foam traces a dark parting
a little girl's hair drawn into pigtails

constantly eroding the sand
seeping further and further up
but if i am quick
i can stand with one foot wet
one foot dry
i can choose both and neither

up the beach
sandcastles bud and sprout
mushrooming into fairytales
little children season themselves with sand
bake in any sunlight they can catch

beyond, the sea
is no fairytale;
not even blue, in fact
(was it ever blue?)
fierce, dangerous, exciting
the koru shapes beckon
and the rolling tide beats
the waves gyrate, reach out
ask me to dance
no children there, just the occasional
intrepid wind-surfer

i want both, I want to dance
and i want sand-castles to be real forever

but the sea is too quick
hissing, it drowns my ankles
I never had a choice
the tide chooses
the crossing-place is gone and I cannot go back

--Emily Adlam

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Adults

First prize:

Five impulses to worship the nanny goat

When I read the advertisement for
Nubian, hand-milking doe
very tame
$55,
I can think of five impulses to worship.

1.

She
gilds the world
vertically
unlike my
compound
in-the-round
too-complicated eye

2.

According to Chinese astrology
she is not particularly tidy
but dreams away an afternoon.
Bookish,
she nibbles
on a range of information –
the pepper of nasturtium
the acid-yellow of oxalis
the peppermint of pennyroyal.

3.

My Nubian goddess
on a steep hillside
at the Hilton
or on the back lawn
watching the kids under the shade
of a blue and white beach umbrella.

4.

Her milk is the antidote
to modern life.
I would choose her
to suckle my last child

5.

She lends a bony flank,
a tender ear,
She teaches us to listen
with the same benevolence
she teaches us to love her
when her milk dries up.

--Kirsten Warner

Second prize:

Distance

There's a geisha listening to her i-pod.
I grope for my fiddly little flip phone
to film her because I think you'll find it funny.

If I send it to you now
I'll most likely wake you.
So I save the file instead.

A warm south easterly breeze brushes
past my cheek and swirls
through the fragrant cherry blossom trees
along the Uji river in whirls
of delicate pink petals
turning red russet leaves where you are;

over four hours date-line,
twelve hours air-line,
zero seconds phone-line,
across the hemisphere
you're only a login away.

And all I yearned for was distance.
The kind banished to novels
from nouvelles, nuovo, new.

I grope for my phone again to call you
and panic
to find it's not there.

--Miho Tanaka

Third prize:

Three cranes in a dock

At dawn the tide throws its hush
Over the sandy shoulders of the harbour,

Drains the slope of shells,
Dropping dregs for the gulls to inspect.

In the dock, by a stack of crates,
Three cranes bow their girderd necks east

As if in prayer. They have been folded all night,
A nest of dinosaurs awaiting the extinction

Of their vital urge. The fuel fattens in their tubes,
Their batteries corrode and their skins tatter

In the cluttered yard. Under a vinyl lean-to,
a clutch of white hardhats

Might hatch their legs in the lengthening day.
The cranes are wired

For wakefulness, for the sudden surge into sky -
The hydraulic heave of unrelenting unquestioned purpose.

Everything is organised through a ritual of gravity and cable.
They are devoted to the lever, and hopeful

Having heard the bang of the perimeter fence,
The clang of its chain, and a kettle being boiled in the hut.

--Andy Armitage

Shortlisted

No noise is good noise

The girls next-door
are playing netball.
Bounce………..bounce………..bounce
I close the windows.
Thump………..thump………..thump.
I play Beethoven’s fifth.
Bom-bom-bom-boom.
But he is out-gunned.
Bang...........bang………bang.
Darkness is falling.
Wham………..wham………..wham.
Play continues.
Whack……….whack………..whack
A new day has dawned.
Thud………thud……….thud
I pray for rain.
God……….God………..God

--Peter Reid

Fancy

Don't pick the flowers
The bees might follow you home
The cows will come for the buttercups
Forget themselves
And eat the grass
Leaving little half moons in the mud
That remind you
Of milky way nights
And cream and honey on your porridge in the morning

--Melinda Szymanik

Sunday evening

Boatmen
coming in –
children
reluctantly

leaving
their sand-
structures
to the
in-coming-tide

What sense
of loss
is known
at this
evening’s close

as if
the seeded centre
has been seen
through the
tight turban
of this
still furled rose

--William Leadbeater

Hide and seek

I nearly found God today

he was a pretty tricky bugger

…I had counted to fifty

            and looked in all the usual places
                         
                        the temples

                        the churches

                        the caves

                        the chapels

             
              NOTHING

I knew he’d be smarter than that

I tried jails, hospitals and kindergartens….I was getting warmer

I talked to parliamentarians and policemen…they hadn’t seen him

it was getting dark

Just as I was about to call out “I give up” I caught a glimpse of him

He was running away and cried out over his shoulder

“Mother wants me home for supper. Try and catch me tomorrow.”

“Don’t bother,” I said

Tomorrow I’m looking for Bin Laden

--J Whelen

Evening

The sound of the
Morepork travelled
To meet the
Sound of the
Morepork.

The sound of a mimic
Tried to
Greet it
But could not
No would not.
Its song did
Not echo
The longing in
The moreporks’
Cry.

--Marino Blank

Queen Street

It had been raining…

The day she drove
down Queen Street
she took the tram tracks
to be splits in the earth

‘My lord, I must
do something
before we feel
God’s wrath’

She to the waters
of Tangaroa
and threw
and offering
to the sea

Salt water
sprayed her
everywhere,
Missy said,
‘I must do more’

Up to the church
top of the hill
the car
would carry her there

Out of the car
down on her knees
and crawled
to the top
of the stairs

On the door
she knocked
down the stairs
she went
and into the car
back home

‘What’s the mud
on your face
you are
a disgrace’
her beloved said
merrily

Happy she was
to do the job
and be back
in time for tea

--Rosemary Fong

Winter solstice, Waiheke

This is the weather for friends to cancel visits.
Ferries fail. The seas boil over the road.
Sheets left on the line crack like spinnakers,
and each wind brings new falls of pinecones
to start the next night's fire.

The rain on the windows blends sea into sky,
dawn into dusk. I could be under water piloting
a submarine, or in a satellite circling the earth,
or in a ship marooned in pack ice.

The loss of view removes all sense of distance
but living alone disorients me more;
with all my conversations virtual
the electronic contacts sound as clear,
arrive as fast, cause the same pangs,
whether from Grey Lynn, Perth or Cappadocia.

This is the longest I have lived alone.
my simple duties are to keep a log,
chart the distance, stay on course
and not go mad. I'm well supplied
with stocks of patience, time and ingenuity.

It is the voyage of transition
I have avoided making all my life
out from the coastal shipping routes
to the great seas beyond.

--Nora West

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25 July 2006