Dunedin’s young poets shine
Judge’s report by Sue Wootton

51 poems were entered in this competition. It was wonderful to see this enthusiastic response from young writers in our community. The standard of writing overall was impressively high. We want to nurture this talent and look forward to reading even more entries in next year’s competition.

Wordsworth said that the poet’s craft is a matter of putting “the best words in the best order”. The winning poems all show that quality. To use a musical analogy, each is well-tuned for the particular song it wants to sing.

Several poems were especially striking, and have been highly commended. The three winning poems were works that stretched things to a more demanding level, linguistically, poetically and philosophically. Congratulations to everyone who is mentioned here. Thanks to every poet who entered, and to all the teachers who encouraged them to do so.

For results see here