The winner of the 2023 National Schools Poetry Award is Liberty Beck.
X – MANGOES – X – SNAKES – X – RED PAPER BOATS – X
// x – a patchwork quilt – x //
x – something like a myth – x – a song shrouded in unidentifiable shapes – x – & when monsoon season comes – x – & when the flood rips in – x – & when she was engulfed by the water – x – there rose a fleet folded carefully by the small children – x – whose voices crowd the stairway & echo through the waves – x – a body of water adorned with searching red paper boats – x x – they decorate the memory – x – making garlands with bloody paper instead of ‘real’ flowers – x – they fold stories – x – like plucking a mango from the neighbour’s tree – x – & crashing a motorbike into a river of snakes – x – & accidentally falling asleep under the bed in a game of hide n seek – x – because it isn’t all ‘real’ – x – because it’s a carried thing we were never made to know – x – only made to stitch together – x – haphazardly – x x – tell me – x – about biking with friends around the village – x – making spiders from sewers battle as if they were pokémon – x – it’s selfish – x – but I don’t mind how grim or ‘tiny’ it all is – x – I want to know about the durian farm – x – the best technique to braid a flower crown – x – it’s selfish – x – but I want to know what she was like – x x – I fold a red paper boat – – – – – – – – – – x – she used to sew clothes for them every new year – x – the garments all stitched with the same patchwork – x – just cut into different shapes for different bodies of songs – x – like a narrative – x – like cloths of words given up – x – discarded fragments we give breath to – x – desperately – x – willing water to hold itself – x – – – – – – – – – – I sew the soundbites of those children – x – their songs search for her story – x |
xxxx – sewing until
all we are left with is a quilt to blanket her with
xxx
x sometimes
during our most quiet and wishful hours
I allow myself to see x x x x x x
some resemblance of a shape xx
xxxx
x swaying
x x like water
x
Read the runner-up poems and Morgan Bach’s judge’s report at the National Schools Poetry Award website.
The Friday Poem is edited by Chris Tse. Submissions are now being accepted until 30 September 2023. Please send no more than three poems in a Word document to chris@christse.co.nz.