Monday 1 August 2022

Given Words from Honduras 2022

Our director Charles Olsen has been invited, together with Colombian poet Lilián Pallares, to teach poetry with the Our Little Roses Poetry Fellowship in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, later this year, so we asked the girls from the Our Little Roses orphanage to choose their favourite words. They have sent us their words with artworks and their reasons for choosing each word.

We invite you to write a poem which includes the five words and send it to us before midnight on 26 August, National Poetry Day. Please see the full rules below.

We will award prizes for the Best Poem and the Best Poem by Under-16s. The winners will receive books courtesy of The Cuba Press (see below).

And the five words are…


(If for some reason you cannot see or hear the words in
the video you will find them at the bottom of this post.)


The rules:

– The theme is up to you.
– The poem must include the five words.
– The words can be in any order.
– You may change the tense of verbs and change nouns between plural and singular. (For example help can be a noun or a verb, and can change to helps, helped or helping, but not the adjective helpful. And the adjective thankful cannot be changed to the adverb thankfully.)
– Maximum length 200 words.
– Entry is free and open to all NZ citizens and residents.
– Only one poem per person.
Poems by under-16s must also include the age of the poet. We would prefer parents or teachers to send the poem on the child's behalf.
– FOR TEACHERS: You are very welcome to get your classes to participate, but please help us out by only sending in a selection of up to 10 of the best poems from your students. We have prepared a lesson plan for teachers.
– Participation means you allow us to reproduce your poem on Given Words.
– The deadline for entry is midnight on 26 August 2022.

Submit your poem by email including your full name and town of residence to: nzgivenwords@gmail.com

To receive updates about the competition please subscribe to our newsletter here. We only send emails related with this competition and you can easily opt out at any time.

Winning poems will be selected by Charles Olsen, Mikaela Nyman and Sophia Wilson.

Mikaela Nyman is a writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction in English and Swedish. Born in the Finnish Åland Islands, she now lives in New Zealand. Four years in Vanuatu, a sister’s death and a cyclone (TC Pam in 2015) changed her life. Her PhD research focused on creative writing, rhetorical alliance and ni-Vanuatu women’s voices. Her first novel Sado (2020) is set in Vanuatu. Her first poetry collection, När vändkrets läggs mot vändkrets (2019) was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2020. It connects the islands of her heart: the Åland Islands, Vanuatu and New Zealand. Together with Rebecca Tobo Olul-Hossen she is a co-editor for Sista Stanap Strong: A Vanuatu Women’s Anthology (2021) to commemorate Vanuatu’s 40th independence anniversary.

Sophia Wilson is originally from Australia, and is now based near Ōtepoti Dunedin where she runs a small organic farm and animal refuge with her Asian-born partner and three daughters. Her poems have appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies and been recognised in awards including the Kathleen Grattan Prize, the Robert Burns Poetry Competition, the Hippocrates Prize and the Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize. Her small fictions have placed in National Flash Fiction Day competitions and been nominated for Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and the Pushcart Prize. Sophia Wilson's website.

Charles Olsen (Nelson, 1969) is an artist, poet and filmmaker based in Spain. His third poetry collection in Spanish and English, La rebeldía del sol ('Rebellious Sun') has just been published in the Antonio Machado collection of Olifante Ediciones de Poesía, in Zaragoza, Spain. Read more on Read NZ Te Pou Muramura Writers Page.


About the prizes

The winner of Best Poem will receive the poetry collections Five O'Clock Shadows by Richard Langston, Body Politic by Mary Cresswell, Michael I Thought You Were Dead by Michael Fitzsimons and Shelter by Kirsten Le Harivel, courtesy of The Cuba Press

The winner of Best Poem by Under-16s will receive the book Spark Hunter by Sonya Wilson, which is a finalist in the NZ Book Awards for Children this year and is published in the Ahoy! imprint of The Cuba Press



(The five words are: help, different, warrior, thankful and dream.)


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