Winning Poems
If You're a Poet, We Want to Know it! 2021 Volume 9 – Voyages
Congratulations to our 2021 winners!
Child category | Teen category | Adult category | Previous years' ebooks | This year's ebook | Instructions for downloading |
First place – Child category
The leaves blowing
The blossoms blow in the autumn breeze
And buzzing around are the bees
The rattle snake is making cake
A possum in a blossom tree
Go on the trail and maybe you'll get a tail
The kangaroos are doing poos
The jungle beat the jungle feet
Klara Neill
Second place – Child category
Fly Little Lantern
Your flame glows bright,
You cast off into the black night sky,
A hot air balloon for a mouse.
Fly as tall as the mountains,
Up in the clouds,
Wrapped in your thin, gold paper house.
What you see below you,
Is small and bright,
Fly little lantern,
Fly high.
Isabelle Dickinson
Third place – Child category
Home
The moon shines bright in the cold dark night and reaches for the sky.
It flies with grace through the black empty space, which is made of twinkling stars.
When dawn breaks, the sun awakes and climbs the golden stair.
To a place where the clouds await to journey on the warm morning air.
Like a bird, the sun flies above a world of green and blue.
Where the wind calls and the leaves fall and the waves are a deep ocean hue.
They lap the shore of golden sand, while up above there is a man
beckoning you to come back home, where you will be safe and warm.
Charlotte Apperley
Honourable Mention – Child category
The Rakaia
Just granddad and me on the mighty
RAKAIA
Just him and me and the wind and sea
Sailing the ocean with the wind and the sea
I love the sea with just him and me
the ship and the sun and the waves
Ezekiel Baillie
Honourable Mention – Child category
Voyage of the royal albatross
We spread our magnificent wings and take to the sky.
Spinning and diving like a falling feather.
We travel as far as 190,000 km a year as we soar in glorious movements.
We voyage across the shining waters of New Zealand, hungry for adventure.
We spend the 42 years of our life doing what we love most. Voyaging.
We are the rulers of the sky,
We are the Royal Albatross.
Kourtney Gibson
Teen category
The three entrants are presented below in alphabetical order.
Moon voyage
Three, two, one, blast off
Up in space we see the moon
We are here at last
Jasmine Fay
ocean travel
The boat has left shore
at midnight under full moon
as the stars shine bright
Joe Popham
"Voyages"
Voyages
Ocean
...beyond the horizon
Sky
...looking towards the future
Earth
...to where I am today, to learn
My life
...is a small voyage, full of love and happiness
My voyage is...
..uncharted
Ella Taniwha
First place – Adult category
Piripi's Last Journey
Matariki, the Eyes of God
Voyaging across our skies
The blue bright Sisters, hotter than our sun
Where Hiwa-i-te-rangi, a wishing star
Awaits our dreams of growth; a time
To be grateful, share bounty and feast; a time
To release the spirits of those we have lost; it’s time
To follow the pathway across the sky
Turn left at the Pot
Into the care of Pohutukawa, my Piripi
Anne Veronica Delamore
Second place – Adult category
The Final Voyage of an Agnostic by a Lifelong Atheist
First, I travelled down to Hell in case I had committed a sin
That is where I was welcomed in
There I discovered the Netherworld and, while I was there,
I found my whole sad life laid bare
So next, when I sampled Purgatory, I met so many of my friends
That should have been the journey's end
But, just in case, I decided to make a visit to Heaven above
And that is where I found True Love
Beverley Betterfly
Third place – Adult category
driveway bananas
we sidestep the parked cars and we stop we waitwelookwelisten
we lunge at a trolley, dance around the eden of
forbidden fruit, balanced perfectly at hand height
we cascade our findings into the depths of our
four wheels, you buckled in tight and squealing around the corners
bread spills down the driveway, then the bananas, a wait-for-me-please misdemeanour
up the stairs, again and again, you, your gumboots, the flurry of
bags and please don’t eat all the carrots, darling, because
I know you are famished from going-going all
afternoon, but dinner is soon.
Kaitlyn Wislang
Honourable Mention – Adult category
First Waka
Steering by stars, by the blistering sun. Living off the sea
catching rain as it slashed across. Surfing huge swells
everything tied down: perched high, falling into troughs
sickening thuds, everything creaking, young ones shrieking
in terror, in exhilaration. Studying signs: clouds and currents
Getting a suggestion of shore, a smell of warm land, plants floating past.
A smudge on the horizon enlarging over days until it fills their view.
Relief streaking salt-crusted faces. Hulls scraping up sand. Wary eyes
swivelling everywhere. Legs unsteady on the land. Drinking cool creek water.
Looking around, being here. Not sleeping: the earth too still beneath their bodies.
John Ewen
Honourable Mention – Adult category
Smorgasbord
On OE in Denmark, you taste a different diet –
frikadeller, sild, saltfisk - and try out new words
for texture, flavour. Your tongue makes two journeys.
Some words you don’t like. Herring by any name
make you hawk and gag.
What you like best is breakfast. You rise
almost as early as the baker to buy enough rundstykker
for us all. You lay the table and call us to eat
Kom sa, morgenmad. Spise nu.
You savour every mouthful.
Trish Veltman
ebooks from previous years' competitions
- If You're a Poet, We Want to Know it! Volume 9 2021 “Voyages” https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1101259
- If You're a Poet, We Want to Know it! Volume 8 2020 "Bubbles"
- https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1037856
- If You're a Poet, We Want to Know it! Volume 7 2019 "Together" https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/953703
- If You're a Poet, We Want to Know it! Volume 6 2018 "Food for Thought- haiku" https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/890616
- If You're a Poet, We Want to Know it! Volume 5 2017 "Kāpiti-Haiku" https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/744184
- If You're a Poet, We Want to Know it! Volume 4 2016 "Matariki-winter" https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/655210
- If You're a Poet, We Want to Know it! Volume 3 2015 "Laugh out loud" https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/571544
- If You're a Poet, We Want to Know it! Volume 2 2014 “War & Peace” https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/492003
Instructions
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