23 Aug 2019

Flash poetry competition - the winners

From Afternoons, 2:22 pm on 23 August 2019

To mark National Poetry Day, Jesse Mulligan challenged listeners to wite a 'flash poem' this week.

At 1.20pm on Friday, he gave out six words to include in a six-line poem that had to be written and sent to Afternoons by 1.45pm.

Those words were drive, catch, glass, about, wave and worth.

We literally got hundreds of entries but only 154 made it in by the cut-off time.

Our judge, poet Erik Kennedy, went through them all and picked some runners-up and winners.

The winning poem was by Valerie Packman of Rotorua:

Valerie Packman's winning poem

Valerie Packman's winning poem Photo: RNZ

The runners-up

Sandy Abbott:

Call the Police! It's worth their time!
Glass has been shattered, there's chaos, there's crime!
Lock all your doors, there's trouble about.
Levin is in lockdown, don't drive there, stay out
But Wait! The cops are too few, the crooks are too brave!
They can't try to catch them, just give them a wave.

***

Kelly Bolton (from Tokyo)

I thought about catching a wave,
surf report said the sea was like glass,
but I came out anyway, got off my lazy arse,
now I feel alive - it was worth the drive.

***

Tim Upperton

For what it's worth:
I didn't catch your wave
as your car reversed down the drive,
but the flash of sun on your windshield glass
made your face shine, for a moment,
which was about as good.