2015 Emerging Poets Competition

Proudly supported by The Divine Muses Poetry Reading and Penguin Random House New Zealand, the Emerging Poets Competition is now in its 4^th year. The competition enables writers who have to achieve that all important first publication to gain success and exposure. Our previous winners, including poet, editor and blogger, Elizabeth Welsh and poet and book reviewer, Elizabeth Morton, have gone on to achieve publication success in NZ literary journals. In 2015, our judge is poet and novelist, Rosetta Allan, a former competition runner up.

About the competition:

Closing Date: 3^rd August 2015

Results announced at Divine Muses Poetry Reading on National Poetry Day 2015, 28^th August 2015

First Prize: $200 worth of Penguin Random House NZ books

Second Prize: $100 worth of Penguin Random House NZ books

Notice of the 2015 Emerging Poets Competition rules and entry form are available at: http://www.artagent.co.nz/poetry/poetry.htm

About our judge:

Rosetta Allan’s books include the poetry collections, Little Rock (2007) and Over Lunch (2010), and her debut novel Purgatory (Penguin Random House NZ, 2014). Her poetry and essays have appeared in publications and anthologies in New Zealand, Australia and the USA, and in online literary journals, including most recently the essay Dear Mother, songs of the Kamikaze, released in The Griffith Review #48. She is the co-winner of the IWW Kathleen Grattan Best Sequence of Poetry 2010 and Metonomy’s Best Poem 2010, and was runner up in the 2013 Emerging Poets Competition. Rosetta is available for interviews

For further information contact:
Siobhan Harvey: siobhan.harvey@aut.ac.nz

or Jane Sanders: jane.sanders@artagent.co.nz

http://www.artagent.co.nz/poetry/newvoices.htm         http://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.nz/

Thursday 11 June

Writers turn the page this Matariki

A literary celebration of Matariki will take place at Museum of Wellington City and Sea’s Third Thursday event on 18 June from 6.00pm to 8.30pm.

Kiwi authors Patricia Grace, Chris Tse, Kate Camp and John Summers will read from their published works and discuss their stories, poetry and thoughts on Matariki with award-winning writer and Museums Wellington Curator Māori, Tina Makereti.

“Matariki is a time of reflection and acknowledgement, when we mourn those who have passed away, farewell the year and plan for the year to come,” says Makereti. “It’s an opportunity to think about our history, and understand how it guides us in our potential futures. This will provide the starting point for what promises to be a lively discussion with these great writers.”

Patricia Grace’s new book Chappy tells of a young Māori man sent home to New Zealand from a privileged youth in Europe. Here, he learns of his family, and most importantly of the love affair between his Māori Grandmother and deceased Japanese Grandfather.

Chris Tse’s anthology How To Be Dead In a Year of Snakes brings life to one of New Zealand’s notorious hate crimes, when on a Sunday in 1905 Lionel Terry killed the Chinese gold miner Joe Kum Yung on Haining Street, Wellington.

Snow White’s Coffin is a collection of poetry by Kate Camp, a book that was finalist in the 2013 New Zealand Post Book Awards. A skilled poet, Kate wrote Snow White’s Coffin while on her Creative New Zealand Berlin residency.

John Summers will be reading from his first book The Mermaid Boy – an appealing book of true short stories telling of his travels from Christchurch to China, spanning from the outlandish to the ordinary, and of his friendship with “a boy who dressed as a woman who was also a fish”.

After the readings and discussion, the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions, get books signed and create their own handmade booklet of readings to take home.

Third Thursday is a monthly late-night event at Museum of Wellington City and Sea, showcasing the performers, people and stories which make our region unique. Entry to these events is by koha.

For further information on these events or high res photos, please contact Museums Wellington Communications Coordinator, Juliet Thomas.

04 471 0514| juliet.thomas@wmt.org.nz

Sunday:

Yesterday I got sent a link to a web page where NZ poets had gifted me poems for my 60th birthday. I had a lovely day with my family but I ducked in and out of the poems when I was home. I haven’t had a chance to read all the poems and notes but I am quite speechless.

The poems have struck and stuck with me. The way they have caught something of my own poetry or obsessions or experiences. That glistening glinting mesmerising expanse that we call New Zealand poetry. That has neither border nor limitation. That is steeped in an ingrained love of words and what they can do.

To have taken time out of your busy lives and placed a poem on the shelf is extraordinary.

I can’t tell you how much this means to me, and to many family.

I encourage poetry fans to delve into this treasury box and make their own discoveries.

Love to all,

Paula

The Best of Edwin Thumboo – reduced from $35 to $15

X by Vona Groarke –  from $25 to $15 and from $35 to $15

This seems too good to miss!