For Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day (25 August 2023), we’re celebrating the poets (and poems) that feature in Wellington Writers Walk – in its 21st year in 2023 – by inviting you to create your own poetic response to the Writers Walk.
Wellington Writers Walk and the Wellington Branch of New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa (NZSA) invite you to enter our poetry competition, POETS ON THE WRITERS WALK.
The challenges: Respond to one of these five challenges that draw from sculptures on Wellington Writers Walk.
- The Grace challenge: write a poem that starts “there’s always an edge here”
- The Kidman challenge: write a poem that includes the line “not a straight town at all”
- The Manhire challenge: write a poem in 3 lines and/or 11 words
- The Edmond challenge: write a poem that includes (or responds to) the line “It’s true you can’t live here by chance”
- The Writers Walk challenge: write a poem that uses words from one or more of the 23 sculptures and puts them together (or adds to them) in a different way
Your entry: Enter one poem per person, up to one page (30 lines). There is no charge for entry. Please indicate on the entry form if you are 18 years of age or under, to be eligible for youth award.
Entries close at 11.59pm on Friday 11 August 2023
Please read the TERMS AND CONDITIONS of entry
How to submit: Register and submit your poem online here
Competition judge: Our competition judge is Wellington poet Janis Freegard, whose latest poetry collection was Reading the Signs (The Cuba Press, 2020). Janis is a Member of the Academy of New Zealand Literature – read more about Janis and her work here.
Key dates: Competition opens on 14 July, and closes at 11.59pm on Friday 11 August. Winning entrants will be selected and informed by Monday 21 August 2023. Prizes will be announced and awarded at our Poetry Day 2023 salon event in Wellington on Friday 25 August.
Questions: If you have any queries, please email wellington@nzauthors.org.nz
Thanks to Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day 2023 for awarding seed-funding for this competition and the associated event.
