Magnetic Poetry Competition
UPDATE: Monday 5 September
The winners have been chosen! Read their entries below, then scroll down to read the original poems.
[based on “Māori Uniform” by Nicole Titihuia Hawkins]
blood lipstick to cover a urban rebel
Māori uniform
Nannies rules
I wear pounamu to be enough
wāhine Māori Uniform
stockings skirt at the marae
What Māori uniform have the Queen to wear
probably nothing
we karanga
I do my best
Yeah I’m Māori Nan
me
By Mia McDougall
Nicole’s comments: It was so tricky [to choose one winner] and I loved them all.
I love this poem because it speaks to the nuance of what it means to be Māori in te ao hurihuri. I particularly love the line “I do my best”, there is sadness and anger here but also pride and great hope for what the future holds for the speaker and their roles and responsibilities on the marae.
[based on “Elephant in the parlour” by Joanna Preston]
Ebony remembers this -
knows
the length of every note
the wait -
settling gently, under it -
nesting.
So patient
a flutter -
the solitude broken
turning into vines
damping down, trembling
and coming back like hammers
salt presses against bones
water giving way to her
a daughter:
fingertips
temple
cheek
By Henrietta Bollinger
Joanna’s comments: I really enjoyed reading the entries, and was fascinated by the similarities and differences. In the end it came down to a choice between two poems that I kept coming back to and circling around again and again over the course of the week. Both made lovely use of a transition from movement to stillness, but in the end it came down to one image: trembling / and coming back like hammers, which makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
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GOOD BOOKS is celebrating Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day with a Magnetic Poetry Competition.
Create a new poem in-store with our custom-made, very limited-edition magnetic poetry sets. There are two sets, each using the words from one of the poems from this year’s Ockham NZ Book Award-winning poetry collections: Tumble by Joanna Preston, which won the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry, and Whai by Nicole Titihuia Hawkins, which won the Jessie Mackay Prize for best first book.
You can also enter online if you’re not able to come into the shop. You can find the two poems below.
The Tumble winner will be selected by Joanna and the Whai winner will be selected by Nicole. Each winner will receive a magnetic poetry set and a $50 GOOD BOOKS gift voucher in the week following Poetry Day.
Rules: You can only use the words in the poem; no using words more than once (unless they appear more than once); you don't need to use all the words. One entry per poem per person.
Entry Details: Free to enter. Open to all NZ residents aged 16 and over. Enter in store or via email.
Submission Dates: 9am, Monday 22 August to 5.30pm, Friday 26 August
Contact: shop@goodbookshop.nz
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The Poems: Use the words from either of these poems to create a new poem.
The elephant in the parlour
The piano did not expect this, these
furtive stirrings, like a mouse, nesting deep
in its cabinet, turning and turning
against the trembling soundboard.
A daughter of the house – the piano remembers
about daughters – anointed its keys with salt water
and the satin benediction of her cheek.
The piano presses gently back
into the fingertips that flutter across ivory,
fills the singing length of every note
with the timbre of its longing. So patient,
it will wait in the gloom of the house
settling around it, a temple giving way
to the coming of the forest. It knows
in its iron bones, ebony and leafmould,
the shadow under vines damping down
its velvet hammers, the long-forgotten key
of solitude broken off in its lock.
from Tumble by Joanna Preston (published by Otago University Press)
Māori Uniform
The event is at Te Papa / it’s about wāhine Māori / there might be a karanga / should probably wear a skirt / I guess it should be black / I know / I know / that’s Queen Vic’s jam / but it’s just how we roll / it’s uniform.
What do urban Māori wear to something like this? / Yeah, it’s on the marae / but it’s Whiting’s whare / rules are guidelines / there’ll be Nannies there / nothing too boobie / if I wear a skirt I’ll have to wear stockings / Nan would kill me if I didn’t / it’s Māori.
Black jeans / rebel / but I’m wearing a tunic / technically it’s a top / but it’s long enough / to cover my teke / I couldn’t wear that dress / it clashes with red / lipstick / blood red / contrast against pounamu / pop / that’s the best part / uniform.
from Whai by Nicole Titihuia Hawkins (published by We Are Babies Press)
