The Happiness of Rain

One of the joys of working down my end of Dunedin is the proximity to the University Book Shop. During my lunch break yesterday I wandered along to catch up on the latest arrivals, and discovered Jan Hutchison’s poetry book, The Happiness of Rain. Jan’s wonderful poem, Another letter to Hone, appeared in the Spring 2011 edition of PitWR. The Happiness of Rain is another superb collection from Jan. With a price tag of $19.99 it’s about the same price as a movie ticket and a box of popcorn. Great value when you consider the smell of a book is superior to popcorn and unlike a movie, the book is yours forever!

When North meets South

We want to move northwards. Well I don’t really, I’m happy living in Dunedin. To clarify; we want to move the project northwards. With the South Island covered we want to carry on towards our long-term goal of offering the cards to every New Zealand medical centre, rest home, hospice and prison.

And to kick-start the move there’s a new project on the go………

We rely totally on sponsors to cover our printing costs but we also need to help ourselves, hence the poetry competition fees helped us with our postage costs. (Did you hear the news today about the postage increases from 1 July ?!?!)

So what’s happening?

Later in the year Poems in the Waiting Room is presenting an exhibition, When North meets South. We’ve invited 14 haiku poets from the North Island to each send us 6 haiku. We’ll then distribute 3 haiku to each invited Otago artist who will choose the one haiku that appeals to them the most and then they’ll create a work in response to it. (I’m on the lookout for sponsors to help with the cost of: advertising, the opening, gallery hire, and prize money.) Poems in the Waiting Room will take a small commission on all sales made and this will be put towards our funds to take the project from the South to the North Island.  So yes we are looking for sponsors again but we really are trying to help ourselves as well!

Over Easter I’m hoping to create a new blog, When North meets South. Over the next few months I’ll post information about the haiku poets, the artists and if we’re lucky enough we may get to see photos of their work in progress!

The end of the rainbow

With so many great entries in our poetry competition I’ve easily filled the spring Poems in the Waiting Room card without having to search the world over!  So, the spring card will be our annual NZ poets’ edition. But you won’t have to wait until then to read the winning entries – they’ll feature in the Winter PitWR card which will be distributed in June.

During my lunch break today I called in to the printer to see what colours he had to offer for our winter card. And it looks as though we’ve worked our way through the rainbow.  There are some darker colours available but they wouldn’t be especially easy to read so we’re going to have to repeat an earlier colour. Some of the colours above may look the same but up until now we’ve managed to find different shades of various colours. Still, it’s the content that counts isn’t it!!

And the winners are – - – -

Montepulciano clock tower

Thanks to everyone who entered the inaugural Poems in the Waiting Room competition. Sending poems out into the world is an act of bravery. It’s all too easy to say ‘ I’m too busy’, or ‘ oops I’ve missed the deadline’, or ‘what’s the use I’m not going to win anyway’. Every entrant is a winner – you made the effort, created a poem and met the deadline.

Congratulations to the four prize winners. Their poems will appear in the winter edition of Poems in the Waiting Room.

First prize: Dunedin’s Emma Neale for An Inward Sun

Second prize: Joan Norlev Taylor from Blenheim for Women Reversed

Third prize: Catherine Fitchett from Christchurch for Temptation

And the D-scene prize for the best unplaced poem from a Dunedin resident went to Carolyn McCurdie for At the crib in July

Judges’s comments:
After reading all 273 poems from 115 poets, twice, I selected about 30 poems. From these, I eventually selected 12 poems. These 12 met the following requirements: They had a certain smoothness and  complete-ness. They were all well-turned poems – like polished pebbles. They appeared perfectly formed; consistent; pleasing; satisfying. Nothing jarred or impeded the eye and brain’s track along the lines. There were no mistakes. They were fresh and robust. They didn’t confuse. The last lines did not disappoint or leave me hanging.. The poems didn’t merely describe, but developed an idea and took me somewhere. They were not too simplistic or sentimental. They didn’t rely on cliché. They were clear without bordering on prosaic. They didn’t preach or moralise.

It was extremely difficult to select three winners from the final 12. Any of those poems could have won. However, in the end I am satisfied that I made the right choices for the winning three.

‘An Inward Sun’ – a well-worked poem containing fresh, vivid images which continued to delight, no matter how many times I read it.

‘Women Reversed’ – a thoughtful poem that uses language well; each line cleverly and expertly develops the situation it is describing.

‘Temptation’ – A gentle poem, deceivingly simple its light touch deftly winds the reader towards the surprise of a very fine last line.

Kay McKenzie Cook

Kay McKenzie Cooke

A bouquet of thanks to Kay for her time and effort in judging the competition. Many thanks to the late Sylvia (Tui) Badcock, Speech Communication Assn. Otago, and  D-scene for sponsoring the prizes.

Information about the 2013 Poems in the Waiting Room competition will be posted here in October.

Uniting Nations with Poetry

A few months ago I was contacted by Michael Sheridan Stone, the Director of Poems in the Waiting Room Worldwide, to see if I would share my Poems in the Waiting Room experiences and initiatives with Lis Bastion, the CEO of Varuna – Australia’s national residential writers’ house. Lis was keen to learn how PitWR worked as she was considering setting it up in Australia. Emails flew back and forth across the Tasman, samples of our poetry cards whizzed over to the Blue Mountains and look at this terrific news.

If you want to find out more about the Writers’ House have a look here. What a wonderful facility to have. I alerted my email pal Greg Judkins, an Auckland GP, to the site and he rather wistfully replied, Wouldn’t it be great to have the confidence to do something similar in New Zealand.  One day, Greg, one day.

Now, I’m hoping to publish the competition results by the weekend. There’s just one winner I haven’t been able to contact and I don’t think it’s fair he/she should read the results here. Please be patient with me!

And then, and then, well with the 2012 competition over I decided I needed another project. So, I’m in the midst of putting it all together – more news next week. How’s that for a cliff hanger?

Cheers

Ruth

Behind the scenes again

Rosalind is the night guardian of PitWR. Often when I get up in the morning there’s an email from her, sent at midnight or later. But late nights and early mornings don’t work so my 7.00am replies aren’t discovered until she rises at a more leisurely hour!

Rosalind is my proofreader, the deliverer of PitWR cards in Oamaru (she’s an ex Oamaruvian) and my sounding board. Whenever we meet I’ve usually got an idea, a scheme or thought to bounce off her. Anyone overhearing our phone conversations would be rather bemused to hear, “where shall we meet for the hand over?”  But we’re not making illicit arrangements, just organising the transferral of PitWR cards from my car boot to hers before she heads off to Oamaru!

THANKS

The success of Poems in the Waiting Room depends on two critical factors; poets willing to loan their poems to PitWR and, organisations willing to sponsor the printing of the cards. When supporting the Braille booklets there is very little recompense for the sponsor. 30 booklets means 30 Braille readers are aware of the sponsor’s grant. Whereas the same grant will provide 3500 cards and 3500 people get to see the sponsor’s name.

So a special thanks to the Southern Victorian Charitable Trust who have funded our autumn Braille booklets and

to the Otago Branch of the NZ Federation of Graduate Women who have provided a grant to ensure the  winter Braille edition will go ahead.