With the opening of competitions for the Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day less than two months away, the director of Given Words, Charles Olsen, has invited the winners and special mention of the 2023 competition, Elliot Harley McKenzie, Boh Harris and Tim Saunders, to read their poems for NZ Poetry Shelf.  

All entries had to include the five words broken, reflection, disappear, path, and paint, which were chosen by students at López de Arenas Secondary School, Marchena, Seville, Spain. The winners were selected by Mikaela Nyman, Sophia Wilson and Charles Olsen. Their comments on the poems along with a selection of the entries by both adults and under-16s can be read on Given Words.   

On 1st August 2024, Given Words will open for its ninth year, with some of the words chosen by pupils of Te Parito Kōwhai Russley School in Christchurch. Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day will be held on Friday 23 August this year and all competitions will be available on the Competition Calendar.

The readings

The winner of ‘Best Poem’ was Elliot Harley McKenzie for their poem transmutations.  

  

Winner of the ‘Best Poem by Under-16s’ was Boh Harris, then aged 12, for his poem The Broken School.  

And a Special Mention was awarded to Tim Saunders for his poem My Mother, Deciduous. 

The poets

Elliot Harley McKenzie (they/them) is a pākehā poet living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. They have previously been published in Starling, Best New Zealand Poems, Tarot and Sweet Mammalian. Elliot enjoys listening to audiobooks, bouldering, ceramics and their job as a support worker for people with disabilities. Their poetry is inspired predominantly by love, heartbreak, queer identity, ecology and visual art. The poem transmutations looks back on a past relationship, exploring turbulent emotions and fragmented memories alongside the myth of Narcissus.  

Hi, I’m Boh Harris. I am 12 years old and I’ve been at Write On School for Young Writers for nearly 2 years. My top two interests are creative writing and drama. When I grow up I would like to be an actor and an author. Poetry isn’t my forte but I am happy with the outcome of this poem and will continue to do more poems in the future because I thoroughly enjoyed writing this piece.  

Tim Saunders farms sheep and beef in the Manawatu. He has had poetry and short stories published in Turbine|Kapohau, takahē, Landfall, Poetry NZ Yearbook, Headland, Flash Frontier, Broadsheet, Best Small Fictions, RNZ and he also won the 2018 Mindfood Magazine Short Story Competition. Tim placed third in the 2019 and 2020 National Flash Fiction Day Awards, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. His first book, This Farming Life, was published by Allen & Unwin in August, 2020. His second book, Under a Big Sky, was published in August, 2022.