We are seriously counting down! Only five days to go until the competition closes. Unless you’re Dunedinites it might be safest to Fastpost any last-minute entries.

Many thanks to all the poets who have entered from around New Zealand, we’re excited with the number of entries received. AND we’re already gathering ideas for next year’s competition.

If you’re a winner I’ll notify you personally with the results – late March/early April. I’m planning to send out a global email with results to all entrants who supplied me with an email address. I’ll also add a results post to our blog to keep everyone in the picture!

The autumn card

It feels as though Autumn is nudging her way into our days so it’s appropriate to acknowledge everyone who has contributed to our latest edition of Poems in the Waiting Room. We’ve gathered poets from Australia, America, and Great Britain, to join our New Zealand friends. Many thanks to all the poets for the loan of their work and to Creative New Zealand for sponsoring this edition. The following bios have either been provided by our poets or gleaned from other sources.

C. J. Allen’s poetry has appeared in a wide range of magazines & anthologies in the UK, USA, Ireland and elsewhere and has been broadcast on BBC Radio. In 2008/9 he worked with the sculptor Val Carman to produce site-specific sculpture featuring his poetry – which is now installed at a permanent base in the Peak District National Park. His most recent collections are: A Strange Arrangement: New and Selected Poems (Leafe Press, 2007), and Lemonade (a red ceilings press e-book, 2010 http://issuu.com/theredceilings/docs/lemonade). Violets – the winner of the 2011 Templar Press Pamphlet Competition – was published in November, and At the Oblivion Tea-Rooms is forthcoming from Nine Arches Press this year. He currently edits the reviews pages of the literary magazine Staple.

Meg Campbell grew up in Palmerston North, and studied acting in Wellington before meeting her husband Alistair Campbell in 1958. Meg published six poetry collections, beginning with The Way Back, which won the PEN Award for the Best First Book of Poetry in 1982. Poems Adrift, came out on 17 November 2007, a day after she died at home, and two days before her 70th birthday. It’s Love Isn’t It, a joint collection of love poems by Meg Campbell and Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, was published in 2008.

Cyril Childs lives in a high part of Port Chalmers looking out over Otago’s beautiful harbour. He has written haiku and related forms of poetry since working in Japan in the late 1980s and at times in the 90s.
Cyril sent me the above short bio in November. I learnt so much more about Cyril after listening to some heartfelt tributes from his friends at his February funeral. See  http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/cyrilshaikujourney to read more about Cyril’s wonderful contribution to the world of haiku.

Emilie Collyer lives in Melbourne, Australia. She writes poetry, prose, performance and also works as a copywriter. In 2011 she published Your Looking Eyes, a collection of illustrated poetry. You can find out about the book and see what else Emilie is up to at her blog: www.betweenthecracks.net

Kate Duignan lives in Wellington, and most of her time at the moment is spent looking after her young daughters (one 5 months and one 3 years).  Her grandmother Molly, was still alive when Kate wrote Grandmother, and still in her own home with her husband Jack.  Molly died in 2009.

Paula Harris lives in Palmerston North, which is a pretty good life indeed. She has been published in Takahe, Poetry New Zealand and JAAM, amongst others. Aside from writing poetry, she dances Argentine tango, teaches Italian cooking and listens to a lot of hip-hop – loudly.

Catherine Mair began writing in the late 1980s. At the time Catherine and her husband, Selwyn, were dairy farming in the Western Bay of Plenty. She loved the rural environment and enjoyed the space it afforded her family of four. Catherine became interested in writing haiku. One of her major achievements has been the inspiration of Katikati’s Haiku Pathway which evolved as Katikati’s millennium project. She is still involved as chairwoman of the Katikati Haiku Pathway Focus Committee.

Kenn Nesbitt lives in Spokane, Washington. He published his first collection of poetry, My Foot Fell Asleep, in 1998 followed by I’ve Seen My Kitchen Sink in 1999 and a third book, Sailing Off to Singapore, in 2000. He has published a further five poetry books with poems also appearing in magazines, school textbooks, numerous anthologies of funny poetry, as well as on television, audio CDs and even restaurant placemats. Check out his website  http://www.poetry4kids.com. where Kenn tries to post a new funny poem every weekday.

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson, Scottish novelist, essayist, and poet contributed several classics to the world of children’s literature. A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885), containing some of Stevenson’s best-known poems, is still regarded as one of the finest collections of poetry for children.

Essayist, poet, and storyteller, E. B. White wrote for the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, and other magazines, and for newspapers. He published over twenty books, including One Man’s Meat (1944), The Second Tree From the Corner (1954), The Points of My Compass (1962), Letters of E.B. White (1976, and Revised Edition, 2006), Essays of E. B. White (1977) and three books for children: Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte’s Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970). Among his many awards are the Gold Medal for Essays and Criticism of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, the National Medal for Literature, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1973 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

How does she do it? Julie Woods hosts her hour-long Cooking without Looking Show every week introducing songs, chatting to guests, and recalling recipes using no prompts, braille or otherwise. She is a woman to admire and her memory is one to envy!  Once she reassured me Alison Holst wasn’t listening and I suggested baking purists turn off the radio I let loose with my version of my favourite recipe – the most delicious fruitcake. And why wouldn’t purists have been impressed? Well I rarely sift, I use margarine instead of butter, I substitute fruit juice for sherry and to stop me licking and picking the mixture I chew gum. Talk about airing my secrets! Anyway it was a fun show and we had a great chat about Poems in the Waiting Room. I gave Julie a Braille copy of PitWR and  she gave me some apricot jam she’d made the night before. Delicious! Many thanks to Julie for inviting me on to her show and also to the lovely Otago Access Radio peoples, Lesley Paris and Geoff Barkman  for reassuring me before and after the programme!

In the weekend I treated myself to two books. Helen Lehndorf’s first poetry collection, The Comforter, is wonderful. Check it out at your nearest library or even better, buy a copy for keeps. The second book, The Cheese and Onion Sandwich and other New Zealand Icons, is a collection of prose poems by Vivienne Plumb. It would be a great gift for kiwis living overseas – make them really homesick!  Dunedinites they’re available at the Otago University Bookshop. And coincidentally Seraph Press published both books.

In the next few days I’ll post, on this blog, the bios of the poets featured in the autumn Poems in the Waiting Room card and during the last week in February I’ll post, in the mail, the autumn cards.

Tomorrow I’m sharing airtime with Julie Woods – that blind woman – on Otago Access Radio. Julie hosts her own show, Cooking without Looking, every Wednesday from 1 –2. I’m to be profiled on the, “If I baked for the Prime Minister” segment. I’ll share my favourite recipe which I’d offer to the PM if he turned up for afternoon tea and then we’ll have a chat about     poetry!!  Well you knew there had to be a poetry link didn’t you!

Otago Access Radio can be found at 105.4 FM or streamed live on www.oar.org.nz.

Check out Julie’s website here. She is one amazing woman!

IT’S NOT TOO LATE BUT WE’RE COUNTING DOWN. The 2012 Poems in the Waiting Room competition closes on February 29. (We’ve arranged 29 days in February this year just to give you that extra 24 hours to get your entries in!)

I’m meeting up with Kay McKenzie Cooke on March 1 to officially hand over the box of entries. And then it’s all up to her.

I must get around to entering won’t give you a chance to win, you need to enter now. Go grab one, two or three of your best poems and pop them in the post today.

FOR FULL ENTRY CONDITIONS CLICK ON POETRY COMPETITION ABOVE.

Cheers, Ruth

I wouldn't mind these postage rates!

I spent a large part of Waitangi weekend enveloping, addressing and organising postage for 4963 poetry cards. It was such a blustery weekend I was pleased to have PitWR as an excuse to be absent from my garden. I am very much a ‘fair weather’ gardener!

So just for now, our spare room is a sea of cardboard cartons! I’ll drop them off at NZ Post in a couple of weeks for distribution to: 283 medical practices, 104 rest homes, 7 prisons, 2 hospices, and 80 poets/interested others.

Up until 2011 NZ Post helped PitWR by gifting us 100 freepost envelopes annually but last year they deemed the cards to be  ‘newsletters’ so we missed out on any assistance. After spending $420.00 on postage this season I’m hoping my application to NZ Post might be considered this year!

Because I don’t want to run the project into the ground financially I’ve decided to pull back a little and dip rather than plunge into Christchurch. We’ll supply all the medical practices this autumn but leave the rest homes until the winter edition – by that time I hope to have secured further funding.

Cheers, Ruth

Cyril Childs

This afternoon I heard from Sandra Simpson that Cyril Childs died on Friday. I contacted Cyril in November for permission to use one of his haikus in our autumn edition of Poems in the Waiting Room so I’m saddened that he didn’t live to see his contribution to our project. For tributes see . Our condolences to Cyril’s family and friends.

backyard cricket
Dad and I pick up
    the kitchen window

                                                            Cyril Childs (1941 – 2012)

Talking of Christchurch we’re excited to say that the autumn edition will be distributed throughout Canterbury. This means we’ve reached our goal of supplying poetry cards to all of the South Island. It’s quite a milestone for our small organisation– kilometre stone just doesn’t have the same ring does it?

And speaking of milestones, last night our blog had its 3000 visitor. The poetry competition has definitely drawn attention to the site. Remember entries close February 29. All the information about the competition can be found by clicking on the ‘competition’ tab above.

Look out for the latest poetry card, our 14th edition, in early March. We’re expecting 5000 cards back from the printers any day now. I’ll need a week of evenings to address and envelope them ready for posting!

So what’s our next move?  Our longterm plan is to cross the Cook Strait but for now we want to make sure we can continue to finance the project in the South Island before heading northwards.

Marilyn Nelson

Last year I contacted Marilyn Nelson regarding permission to use her poem How I discovered poetry in our winter card. And she replied: Hello, Ruth – Nice to meet you! A terrific project! I did something similar when I was poet laureate of the state: placed poetry books in waiting rooms. I’ll be pleased to be a part of your project. As is often the case the publishers hold the rights to many poems but luckily when I approached Louisiana State University Press they were agreeable to the poem appearing in PitWR, and for free!!!

So I was delighted to read today that Marilyn is the 2012 recipient of The Poetry Society of America’s highest award, the Frost Medal. This medal is presented annually for “distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry.” Previous winners of this award include Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Moore, and Charles Simic. Read more here.

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