Category: poetry competitions

My name is Mitchell Radcliffe and I am fourteen years old. I go to school at St Andrew’s College in Christchurch and am currently a year 9. I love playing sport and I am just starting to enjoy writing with my english teacher being a real inspiration to me.

I have been writing poems for a number of years, and mainly enjoy humorous verse. This started when the new intake of Doctors did their time in Obstetrics.
Six weeks in this environment led to many funny poems which they and the staff enjoyed.
I have won a few competitions and been published in magazines, newspaper, radio, website, library, church notices, published also in two Australian and two NZ anthologies.
I have been widowed for five years and our two children do not live in Dunedin so this pastime gives me much pleasure.

Elizabeth Ashby

She is otherwise occupied with completing a BA hons in Anthropology at the University of Canterbury while pursuing various art projects involving painting on body in order to make poetry.

Naomi is a poet and an IT engineer with a wild idea to change career and dedicate her life to the pursuit of creativity. She lives in Perth WA.

I am a nine year old student in year 5 at Waimairi School in Christchurch.

I am a nine year old, year 5 student at Waimairi School in Christchurch

I am a 10 year old student in year 6 at Waimairi School in Christchurch.

9 years old poet student at Waimairi School.

6 years old poet from New Zaland.

The Moon Turned to Ice
The moon turned to Ice
And it hummed a gentle
Song. It let out
Oxygen, into the nature.

Name: Molly Reid
Age: 10
School: Waimairi
Hobbies/Intrests: Singing, kapa Haka, Music,
School, Poetry Writing, Drama, Netball.
For my friendships poem I was inspired because they would always support me when I needed help. I knew that my friends they were willing to help me.
I also was inspired with my family poem because recently my uncle has been visiting the hospital regularly because he has cancer and I want to make my poem express emotions that I feel when he is there.
I was inspired with my peace poem by seeing that the world needs peace and I want to help to do it.

Captivated by verse, words and the stories that these create, I am a young exploratory writer – seeking to experiment with different mediums, styles and topics. I believe we are only people through people; and words are the beginning to being able to reach out and fill those degrees of separation between each and everyone of us.

Vaughan Rapatahana

Kia ora mo tenei kowhiringa (Thank you for this opportunity.)
Tin Shui Wai
Hong Kong
&
Santo Tomas
Philippines
&
Makaraka
Aotearoa-New Zealand

Published 2014: Expand Your Mind with Poetry Books One and Two (Essential Resources, Aotearoa-New Zealand) http://www.essentialresources.co.nz/Products.aspxSubjectID=&SeriesID=SER5808&NewReleases=True&Featured=False

OutLoud Too – an anthology of Hong Kong poets (mccm creations, Hong Kong)
http://www.mccmcreations.com/books/custom%20&%20culture/outloud-too/main.htm

Forthcoming 2014: Atonement (ASM/Flying Islands, Macau) – a new collection of poems.
Forthcoming 2015: Why English? Confronting the Hydra (Multilingual Matters, U.K.) – a follow up to English Language as Hydra, 2012.

Kerrin P. Sharpe

Kerrin P. Sharpe is a teacher of creative writing. Her first anthology “three days in a wishing well” was published in 2012 by VUP. Her second anthology “there’s a medical name for this” will be published by VUP in August 2014. She was also an oxford poet 2013 (Carcanet UK). Her poetry has also been published in “We Society” Poetry Anthology 2015.

56 years of age and born and bred in Southland on a farm.

I am a year 9 student at St Andrews College in Christchurch and I enjoy creative writing and television and film. In my spare time i like going to the movies and playing Badminton.

Age:10
School: Waimairi
Hobbies/interests: Dancing,Cooking,Poetry writing,drama, reading and netball

feijoa
I was inspired by the memory’s of happy times with my family and friends being outdoors. I was also inspired by James k Baxter

here is some advice
the inspiration for my second poem was talking to my mum about what peace meant to me and how I could help other people be happy too.

Student of English Honours at Women’s Christian College. A short story published in the college magazine, presented a paper on the topic ‘Admixture of Revolutionary Idealism and Optimism in Shelley’s ‘Prometheus Unbound”‘ at Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College.
The poem has been penned down by me in order to bring out a message to the posterity about the increasing violences in recent times..especially the violences meted out towards women..it is only to influence people for a peaceful and better society..

As a writer, one of the best things to write is poetry. There are so many types of poetry, happy, sad, meaningful, mysterious, etc . I am an eleven year old girl and I live in Christchurch, New Zealand. I like to do karate and read in my spare time. I like sport and can can whip up a great story or poem. Hopefully you like my poems.

Artemezia Kabinovsky

Born in Hollywood, California. Studied in the US and UK. Writer and visual artist living in Los Angeles.

Jenny Clay works in a library and retreats to write in the Waitakere bush. Her poems have been published in Takahe, New Zealand Poetry Sociaty anthologies, LiveLines, Poetry New Zealand 47, in a book of poetry for shildren, Poetry Pudding, and on the ezines Blackmail press, Fib Review, Southern Ocean Review, and Shot Glass Press.
In 2012 she was runner up in the IWW Kathleen Ireland Poetry Competition. She has been involved in peace organisations, and the environment is one of the concerns within her works

I write poetry for the enjoyment of the art. I believe that a poet must first establish that they can write in rhyme and rhythm and only then move to the more advanced free verse. I have been published by Struggle Magazine, The Blue Collar Review, Burning Books, Jerry Jazz, IWW Newspaper, Protest Poems, Flute, Black Magnolia, Left Curve, She Mom, Whisper, Vox Poetica and others. Though political or moral in nature I write in various forms.

I have a poetry book entitled “Murmurings of a Mad Man” due out in September.

I have been married over eight years to my wife Sylvia. I am a member of the Church of Christ at Chancellor Avenue where I sometimes preach and work on out reach.

I also recently won the Joe Hill Poetry Labor Prize where I read my poem Tea With Joe Hill, in front of a crowd of over six hundred people in Banning Park, Los Angeles.

I currently serve as secretary for Rhyming Poets International and I am a member of the Revolutionary Poet’s Brigade.

I live in Christchurch and go to St Andrews Collage. i like dogs and have two of them.

I am Madhumitha Murali,
an MBA Finance graduate, and hobby around writing poems and essays. My writing strengths are Creative writing and Business – Finance research writing.

Lucy Murray

I live in Christchurch with my mum and dad and big sister Kate and black Labrador “Pip”

I like playing sports. In summer I play cricket for school and St Albans cricket club. In the winter I play hockey for both school and HSOB Burnside.

It is my last year at Paparoa Street Primary School, where I am a school councillor, IT geek. I’m part of the gifted and talented reading and writing programme and play a musical instrument (guitar).

I am a 13 year old girl who lives in New Zealand an loves to write!

My name is Alex. I am a student at Fendalton Primary School and have just turned 9 years old although I wrote these poems when I was 8.

Lover of words.
Actress.
Writer.
Playwright.
Now using words to help.
Counsellor.

Poetzee is…..A visual poet fighting for a lyrical state
Poetry gives me artistic space away from the 9-5 machine we call life, it allows me to be completely honest and open about personal topics I feel strongly about. I like to think of poetry as an open book, which I can just keep adding to.
My biggest influences are my fears and anxieties, I hope in a short poem I can open up a dialog for others to listen to, to question or to start appreciating what some of us have.

Hi. I’m 15. I live in Huntington, Beach California. I used to live in Hastings, Hawks Bay. My grandparents still live there with my sister. I’m just trying to get my writing out into the world. Hope you enjoy them.

24 years old poet from Brixham, Devon, UK

Lawal Jimoh lives in Lagos where he rises every day at dawn to write and to think of new things on glimmer of twilight before goose flies away from suitcase. His poems have until now remained unshared and undiscovered, except by his family and close friends who are forced to listen to every word he writes, and later feel so passionate to ask for next choice of one word at a time. He is currently working on his first collection of poetry and other writings which he hopes to publish.

I am 9 years old and live in Belmont Auckland. I enjoy playing sports, surfing, reading and writing. I wrote this poem at school because we were learning about Anzac day. I really liked doing it and so I spent lots of my time making it better. I wrote it all by myself without any help and I am very proud of my poem.
Where the Poppies Grow

Early morning, blue sky,
soldiers waiting for their turn to die.
They know it will happen,
it always does,
it’s the waiting that really hurts us!

Barbed wire everywhere,
men dying in mid air!
Shouts of sorrow,
screams of fear
and the spitting of bullets everywhere!

Countries ruined,
people dead,
all that is what I’ve read!

We run out into no man’s land
bayonets ready and heroic as!
Then suddenly men around me start to fall
as the machine guns open fire!
They lie there peacefully where the poppies grow!

Few come back,
but not as before,
their lives have been ruined from the war!

Blood is splattered down on the floor,
like water paint!
But instead of fun it causes pain!

Men have died but poppies won’t,
so we’ll remember them to remember those who have died in the war,
Where the poppies grow!

Poems by Monika John, a writer, attorney and world traveler, living in Washington State. Her writings have appeared in various journals and magazines in the USA and UK: most recently Buddhist Poetry Review, Light of Consciousness Magazine, Urthona UK, Penwood Review, Presence International Magazine, Anthology on Tagore, UK, Fungi and Quiet Shorts Magazine, Sathya Sai Magazine, Scheherazade’s Bequest, poetry forthcoming in The Wayfarer and Lalitamba.

Joane Sye is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She emigrated to NZ in 1971 and settled in Hastings in Hawkes Bay where she has remained. She has three adult children, two of whom also reside in Hawkes Bay. The lovely climate and abundant fruit and easy lifestyle are big attractions. Joan attends the Hawke’s bay Live poets and enjoyes listening to her fellow poets and presenting her own work.
Joan likens her poetry to a living diary of life where moods and emotions can be expresses and shared with family and friends for mutual benefit. Communication is essential.

I am a year thirteen pupil at Bethlehem College, and a keen student in English, Drama, and Classical Studies.

I started writing poetry when I had my breakdown here in Auckland. I wrote heaps of them. They were my ventilation of emotions, feelings; but I don’t think I wrote any good ones until I went to poetry class at Toi Ora. There I have learnt a lot and there have been improvements. I have never joined any competition before for poetry writing and this opportunity will measure my capability. As I grow my poems acquire strength, or at least so I think. I publish a lot of my poetry on my blog and writing poetry is part of me.

I have been writing poems for peace, ever since I began writing poetry.
One of my first poems published in Live Lines 111 was The Programme Seller. Subsequentaly I was runner up in 2010 in the New Zealand Poetry Society;s Annual intentational competiton.
I am a keen supporter of the Centrefor Peace and Conflict studies based in Dunedin at Otago Univeristy. I often write about multicultural themes and non verbal communication. I think these are important for building peaceful relationships.

I am presently here on earth, planning to stay for a while, to play, learn and share.
Who I am I do not know as of yet, so I’ll skip that part.
I currently spend my time nurturing newbies, practicing my skills of staying present in the moment and engaging with life as it is, as well as practicing the allowing of the sacred art of enjoying myself.

I’m 17 years old, living in New Zealand and desperately interested in human nature and personal turmoil that is beneath the surface of each person. I’m just starting out and hopefully everything can be more real.

Hi. I’m Kathrine Anne M. Maranda, 18, and a third year college student in Polytechnic University of the Philippines taking up Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Communication.

I try to write poems during my spare time. I started writing serious literary works when I was fourteen and had realize that I was actually enjoying it and might continue doing it for the rest of my life. Also, it would be great if I can gain more knowledge about literature as I am very optimistic in sharing to everyone how we can achieve peace through writing as one form of communication.

Keith (Tauranga, New Zealand) was a newspaper sub-editor for more than 20 years but he now writes to stay sane. He’s been published around NZ (Landfall, Takahe, Trout, brief, Poetry NZ, Catalyst) and increasingly in the UK and US, was highly commended in the 2014 NZ Poetry Society international poetry competition and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. He lives with artist Talulah Belle and a coterie of nutters. His poetry has also been published in “We Society” Poetry Anthology 2015.

I am a working mother. Part time musician and a full time office worker in an auditing firm. I am also a song writer and a blogger who always write whatever emotion I have.

Sharon R. Rogers was born in Sacramento, California. She grew up in a rural area outside Sacramento with her parents, two sisters, and two brothers along with several horses, cows, chickens, cats, hamsters, rats, and the family dog. Sharon began writing poetry, short stories, and songs when she was around eleven years old. She has always been adventurous and loved traveling and learning new things. Sharon enjoyed teaching at the elementary school level for several years before becoming disabled after a spinal cord injury. Although mostly homebound now, she still loves to write and uses a writing project as therapy.

Self employed landscape architect by day, occasional poet by night (and sometimes on the weekends). Poetry inspired, or should I say bought on by challenging life events, such as life, death, and the need to write something an hour before standing up in front of two hundred people. If something truly inspires me, it’s seeing positive change in others towards a more peaceful way of living. If I’ve in any way contributed to that, it can bring me to tears.

am happy go lucky girl… who wants to do all sorts of crazy things… writing is everything.. passion dreams… it let me be myself…

Born and raised in San Francisco, California, Thomas Allen is an American writer who moved to New Zealand. His favorite writers include Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, Jack Higgans, Robert Ludlum and Ray Bradbury.

Im a 21 year old writer based in Auckland, struggling to find a job after my BA in English and Writing studies … the usual story.
I am passionate about language and write whenever inspiration strikes.

Of Māori Scottish and Irish ancestry, I feel the urge to write when I can no longer deal with the pain and suffering that is projected into my life by way of social network, media and at times having to live within a society that intrudes upon your soul whether you want it to or not. Now in my 50’s, I find I am drawn to the written word as a form of protest at the world and it’s cruelty and a personal release.

Somebody with a lot of time to think about the irony of the world.

I love writing to express ideas and to share experiences. I am also an avid reader and enjoy other people’s words.

Retired teacher/principal who has taught in many schools. Self-published a book recently: “Aunty Alice Teaches a Child to Read and Write Well. ” It reflects my deep interest in promoting language development in children.
Lives in Raglan, writes poetry, short stories children’s stories, and currently working on a biography. Also creates miniature gardens, looks after her dog and cat and four chooks and her large garden.

Truck mechanic – poet.

I am a budding social entrepreneur and youth mental health advocate wanting to create a culture of friendship and co-operation in my lifetime. When my cats finally stop sleeping on my laptop, I enjoy playing around with spoken word. Aside from a few tidbits published when I was 7 (in Flamingo Bendalingo, an anthology by Paula Green) and 13 (in College Herald), I’m pretty new to the poetry scene.

Born in Australia. Extensively traveled, collecting moments to write about.

I am 23 years old and from Timaru. Writing now for 5 years, thanks mainly to Oscar Wilde, Hunter S. Thompson and Michelle Denson.

Half a Century, two score & ten and almost all of those lived in New Zealand.
Now seems as good a time as any to start.
I’ve written a few songs, even recorded a couple, and this poem is a song I’ve never recorded, minus the tune.
As for the picture, when you tune out fear, you can experience the peace of tranquillity, and faith will help you let go of the rope.

I have been struggling for a long time to enrich my life through poems and stories, I have published some books in Persian .
My purpose to send these poems is to appreciate the projects that you are expanding it.

An actor by profession I have done just about everything else under the sun between jobs.
I have been writing short stories and poems, mainly for children, off and on for a few years. This has been primarily for my own pleasures so have never tried to get them published. From England originally I have been in New Zealand for the past 32 years. I am married with two grown up daughters. This is the first competition I have entered.

I moved from Australia to Marlborough five years ago, to be a part of my grandchildren’s everyday lives. A decision guided by The Lord, a true blessing. As well as being, “Nana Beth” to my three gorgeous granddaughters I am actively involved at St. Ninian”s Presbyterian Church, Secretary of Christian Women Communicating International (Blenheim), attend Tai Chi 3 times a week, walk everywhere – never drive, enjoy spending time with good friends, love to read and take pleasure in trying to live my life for The Lord.

My birth date is 1933.

I’m a New Zealand born and breed. At 25 years old all I can hope for is to be creative and inspire someone. Creativity and inspiration are the two most powerful things I can offer.

Of nineteen sixties vintage, and currently residing in the suburb of Kingston in Wellington, New Zealand. Work includes landscape gardening and various forms of social work. Life influences and interests include gamelan music, taichichuan and zen, and an incurable interest in every form of ‘spiritual stuff’, life&death, the universe and everything. Known to dwell in or near communities of artists and composers. Watching clouds and rocks and weeds and and plants and trees and looking after compost worms. Any spare time would be spent wandering aimlessly the mountain ranges of NZ. Educated at Victoria University, Wellington Polytechnic and STSI Solo Indonesia.

Peace is a word, concept, value that I ponder alot. I continue to look for ways to improve the way in which I live, relying on peace to guide my relationships with those I love and those I meet. I live with my civil union partner, whom reminds me to ‘be gentle’ and I hail from a portuguese family (Madeira) who values peace, in a louder way: -) I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland with a nation of people who have continued to look for ways to achieve peace and freedom. My name is Anny da Silva Freitas and I am proud tae be a Portuguese/Scot living in Wellington. I do not consider myself a poet, view poetry as literary adventure.
I sit here and ponder: really is that to much to ask?

I worked in the film and television Industry for the past 17 years principally as an Actor and now as Screen Writer and Director. My Acting history is vast, from the very first role I played in the Feature Film Ruby & Rata, where I played Rata, to the TV role I played as TE HANA HUDSON on SHORTLAND STREET for a three year period and was also acknowledged as a finalist at the 2003 NZ TV Awards for my writing work on the Maori drama series – MATAKU which I was also a series Writer and Director on three of the episodes.

I have been writing poems since I was 13yrs old, and also lyrics for my songs from the same age. I have managed to keep a collection of my favorites. The website aucklandpoetry.com has published a few of my poems and I have recently been looking at ways of making a ‘Coffee Table’ book of my poems.

I am of NZ Maori descent and to the Ngati Porou, Ngati Pu, Tamaterā, and Ngapuhi.

Her poetry has been published in “We Society” Poetry Anthology 2015.

Robynanne Milford is a newly retired General Practitioner in Quakechurch!
She published Songcatcher in 2009 and in 2012 Grieve Hopefully.
She was placed second for “Tidal wave” in the Manuwatu International
Poetry for Performance.
She has been published in Landfall, Takahe, Poetry NZ The Press and Catalyst.

I am Wendy O’Shannessey.
After a lifetime of teaching across all ages, most recently preschoolers, I am about to ‘retire’, but hopefully, I will spend a lot of that time writing children’s stories and poems.
I have written in these two genres throughout my teaching career, but mostly for friends and family and classes I work with. At last I will have time to enjoy writing.
My husband of 43 years, and I are planning on relaxing more, too, with the aid of a campervan. Visiting far-away places in our beautiful country will be inspiring.