This year, international poetry film makers responded to our Call for Word Films and we have selected five (from Germany, Canada, the United States, Austrailia and Ireland) for this, the tenth edition of Given Words. In order of appearance in the presentation video, the word films are by: Ebba Jahn, Tom Konyves, Cindy Stockton Moore, Ian Gibbins and Colm Scully. You can find out more about each filmmaker below the video.
We invite you to write a poem which includes the five words and send it to us before midnight on 22 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 and Massey University Press (see below).
And the five words are…the video you will find them at the bottom of this post.)
We are very grateful to all the people who responded to the Call for Word Films. We could only choose five for the competition, but you can find some of the other entries on the Given Words Instagram. Some have made new word films specifically for Given Words while others sent in fragments of existing works, where we can see how individual words colour our perception of the images presented. You can find out more about each of the five selected filmmakers below (in order of appearance in the video) and there are links to their websites where you can find examples of their poetry film work.
Ebba Jahn graduated from the Film and TV Academy Berlin (DFFB) and has worked as a 16 mm documentary filmmaker and cinematographer. 2018 her focus shifted to the creation of short video collages with original sound and improvised music, own and found footage, artworks, photos and poetic texts. Since the experimental award winning 67 min. music video collage 'IDEA - Miniatures by Improvisers' made 2021/2022, several longer Video Editions in cooperation with musicians followed. 2024 she published her first book in German: COLLAGE Ü. Web
Tom Konyves is a Canadian writer, poet, videopoet and videopoetry theorist. In 1978, he coined the term videopoetry to describe his first interdisciplinary work, Sympathies of War, and is considered to be 'one of the original pioneers of the form'. In 2008, he began research in the field of videopoetry, publishing the groundbreaking 'Videopoetry: A Manifesto' in 2011 to define the hybrid genre, assign constraints and categories to differentiate its various manifestations and specificities. YouTube | Insta | FB | Web
Cindy Stockton Moore is a Philadelphia based artist who creates site-responsive multimedia work that engages the history, environment and poetic narrative of a landscape–with an emphasis on materiality and process involving natural pigments and aqueous media. Her experimental, often collaborative, videos have been screened in festivals and exhibitions nationwide and abroad. Web
Ian Gibbins is a poet, video artist and electronic musician living in South Australia. His poetry has been widely published in Australia and overseas, and includes four books, two of which are collaborations with visual artists. His award-winning poetry videos, video art and soundscapes have been exhibited to acclaim at festivals, installations, galleries and public art displays around the world. Until he retired in 2014, Ian was an internationally recognised neuroscientist and Professor of Anatomy at Flinders University, South Australia, having originally trained as a zoologist. FB | Insta | Vimeo | Bandcamp | Web
Colm Scully is a former Chemical Engineer turned Poet and Poetryfilm maker from Cork, Ireland. He is a judge on The Drumshanbo Written Word Weekend Poetry Film Competition and the Ó Bhéal International Poetry Film Competition. His films have been shown internationally and he won the Deanna Tulley Multimedia Prize 2022. His poems have been published in PoetryIreland Review, Cyphers, Crannóg and Orbis. FB | Web
THE RULES:
- The theme is up to you.
- The words can be in any order.
- You may change the tense of verbs and change nouns between plural and singular. (For example, hold can be a noun or a verb, and so can change to the plural holds and the verb held or holding, but cannot be used as the noun holding.) If you are in doubt about any word you can send us an email.
- Maximum length 200 words.
- If you intend to use AI in any way in the preparation of your poem please read the following supplementary rules first: Use of AI in Given Words. NOTE FOR TEACHERS: You can decide whether or not the use of AI is appropriate for your students.
- 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: We have prepared a lesson plan 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.
- Participation means you allow us to reproduce your poem on Given Words.
- The deadline for entry is midnight on 22 August 2025.
Submit your poem by email including your full name and town of residence + age if under 16 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 Sophia Wilson, Pat White and Charles Olsen.
Sophia Wilson grew up on unceded Anaiwan land in Australia and is now based in southern Aotearoa New Zealand. An arts graduate and former mental health worker, she is the author of Sea Skins, a poetry collection published in 2023 by flying island books.
Pat White is a poet, essayist, memoirist and artist. His writing often directly reflects his interest in rural life and the natural environment. His first collection of poetry, Signposts, was published in 1977, and he has since published a range of collections that draw on his experience living in different places around New Zealand, from the bottom of the South Island to the far north of New Zealand.
Charles Olsen is an artist, poet and filmmaker based in Spain. His third poetry collection, La rebeldía del sol ('Rebellious Sun') is published by Olifante Ediciones de Poesía. In April 2025 he was a special guest of Cadence Video Poetry in Seattle where his poetry film Wandering Houses—co-directed with Colombian poet Lilián Pallares—was premiered. His videopoem Vanitas based on an ekphrastic poem by Mary Jo Salter was featured in Filmetry 2025. You can watch Vanitas on the Filmetry Archive.
About the prizes
The winner of Best Poem will receive Tackling the hens by Mary McCallum, courtesy of The Cuba Press, and The Lobster's Tale by Chris Price and Bruce Foster, courtesy of Massey University Press.
The winner of Best Poem by Under-16s will receive Iris and Me by Philippa Werry, courtesy of The Cuba Press, and Sylvia and the Birds by Johanna Emeney and Sarah Laing, courtesy of Massey University Press.