On the top row, from left, are student poetry winner Lennox Tait, staff poetry winner Abby Smith and alumni poetry winner Giles Graham. On the bottom row, from left, are student fiction winner Jessica Bent, staff fiction winner Gini Jory and alumni fiction winner Rebecca Styles.
A humorous take on the theme “Brave New World” has won Lennox Tait one of the top places in the University of Otago’s annual creative writing competition, Writer.
Tait, a BCom/LLB finalist, won the student poetry category with his witty poem which flipped the theme and took the reader on a journey about Braving New World, the supermarket.
The category winners were:
Student poetry: Lennox Tait
Student fiction: Jessica Bent
Staff poetry: Abby Smith
Staff fiction: Gini Jory
Alumni poetry: Giles Graham
Alumni fiction: Rebecca Styles
The full winning entries can be found here and you can listen to the winners read their works with Otago Access Radio here.
Tait says he can’t write sad or serious pieces. Rather, he prefers to write something that will make people smile.
“With this year’s theme, doing that was challenging, which made me even more determined to flip the thing on its head. I like to remind myself to not take things so seriously; and that there’s always something to laugh about.”
He says he feels very honoured to appear alongside the other winners and is “stoked” that someone enjoyed reading his poem as much as he enjoyed writing it.
The competition’s judge, New Zealand writer and Otago staff member Craig Cliff, says Tait’s untitled poem “really went for it” … “speaking to the challenges we face in 2022”. It also featured the best “dad-joke-adjacent take on the theme Brave New World”.
There were nearly 100 entries across six categories this year – with the contest open to alumni for the first time this year. Cliff says the standard was, as always, very high “making choosing winners very difficult”.
“Reading the entries this year, I have been transported to different planets, asked to ponder the plight of refugees, native birds and captive octopuses, and been granted windows into depression and anxiety, romance and joy.
“It was a privilege to get a taste of what concerns and delights staff, students and alumni in 2022.”
He says many staff entries related to experience of leaving one’s homeland for another country, possibly exacerbated by the pandemic, while many students were concerned by environmental degradation.
“Some of the winning entries stood out because they were so polished. Others might still have a few rough edges, but their raw energy and inventiveness was irresistible. But all entrants should feel proud for taking the time to think creatively and make something in the midst of their busy lives.”
Student Fiction winner Jessica Bent, a postgraduate who will soon submit her PhD in Theology, wanted to explore the idea of Earth in the near future, and did so in her piece titled: “My friend the stranger.”
“I wanted to see it through new eyes, which meant doing one of my favourite things – writing a character from a completely different world. For us, the readers, the main character’s planet feels like the “new world” as we are slowly introduced to her civilisation. Perhaps it’s fair to say, then, that the inspiration for this story is the desire to discover and fall in love with our planet all over again.”
Cliff says there was a lot of sci-fi in the student fiction category, but Bent’s story stood out as the sharpest and best told.
The staff poetry winner was Marine Science Professor Abby Smith, who was inspired by the
Verse 2 of All My Hope on God is Founded by Joachim Neander, translated by Robert Bridges: “Though with care and toil we build them, tower and temple fall to dust.”
“It really made me think about how everything falls apart, but does that really matter?”
Cliff was impressed with her poem, which she titled “falling, falling”.
“I wouldn’t usually associate the transience of things with an uplifting message, but this poem pulls it off.”
Smith, who works on shell geochemistry and ocean acidification says she writes all the time.
“I am a scientist, so I write that kind of thing, but also poems, stories, and items for the newspaper. I’m in a writer’s group; I love writing, and I love sharing my writing. I started writing poetry in my (moony, depressed, hormonal) teens and just kept on even though life got a lot better.”
The staff fiction winner Gini Jory combined the theme with a piece of fiction based at a workplace very much like her own – Hocken Collections – in a story she titled “A Discovery; Donor Unknown.”
“The start of this popped into my head fully formed at 1 AM and I couldn’t sleep until I wrote it down so I didn’t forget it. It is very much inspired by my job, and by the character I’ve been playing in my regular Dungeons & Dragons game for the last few years. It’s also inspired by a lot of the media I’ve been consuming recently- particularly The Magnus Archives podcast and the books Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant and Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. There’s so much classical lore about fantastical ocean creatures across cultures. I think that’s makes it a really interesting place to explore a “brave new world”.”
Cliff says the story pulls the reader under its sway as its realistic beginning gives way to an increasingly weird story.
“It made me call up ‘Song To The Siren’ on Spotify as soon as I finished.”
Alumni poetry winner Giles Graham, who graduated in 2016 with degree in Physics and Mathematics, says his poem It Was Not The New World I Feared was inspired by the difference between the arrival of his first son and his second.
“Leading up to the birth I was prepared for a fraught and difficult time – I remembered too well how hard it was when we had our first child, Alistair. In many ways we were in a much more vulnerable place though. When Fenn did arrive we found ourselves, warm, dry, in a house we owned, equipped with the knowledge and reassurance from our first child. I was so relieved, and was grateful for the chance to find words for that relief.”
Cliff says the sentiment this poem expresses is likely common but not commonly articulated: the anxiety preceding the birth of a second child after a traumatic experience with the first.
“And then it turns to joy. I’m a sucker for a happy ending.”
Now an epidemiology analyst for ESR, Graham says he is also an enthusiastic poet.
“Competitions I have found are a good way of building the practice: the lure of sweet prizes, the deadline to get me moving on editing and refining a draft, and often a theme or constraint, which I thrive off in my written practice.
The alumni fiction winner, Rebecca Styles, graduated in 2010 with a BA Hons in English. After leaving Otago she completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters, and then a PhD in Creative Writing at Massey University. She is currently an investigative writer at Consumer NZ, and teaches short story writing part-time at Wellington High School Community College.
“At work, I write about consumer issues, such as privacy and how data could potentially be used,” she says. “So, I’ve taken a flight of fancy, gone a bit Black Mirror, and thought of the worst-case scenario if there aren’t enough protections in place to ensure people’s right to data privacy.”
Cliff says her winning story “Stock Levels” has the key elements of a good story: “a mystery, a touch of humour, interesting characters. Immensely enjoyable and thought-provoking.”
All of the winners say the competition gave them the opportunity to enjoy being creative.
“I think this competition is great, and it’s nice to see the University supporting the arts,” says Jory. “If the pandemic has shown us anything it’s that we all turn to the arts when times are tough – whether that’s reading, writing or watching shows on Netflix, the arts are a huge part of our expression and enjoyment as human beings.”
Smith agrees: “I think a competition like this, open to the whole University, lets people show other dimensions that might not be obvious. A very good thing.”
Jessica Bent encourages anyone who is thinking of entering next year to do so.
“Bite the bullet! Go ahead and write. Have fun with it, explore different writing styles and find what resonates best with you!”
The competition was established in 2019 as part of the University’s 150th celebrations. It is organised by University Publications Editor Lisa Dick and English and Linguistics Programme Teaching Fellow Nicola Cummins and supported by University Book Shop, Otago University Press, Dunedin City of Literature, Otago Access Radio and the Otago Daily Times.
– Kōrero by Lisa Dick, Publications Editor
