This year’s winner of the National Schools Poetry Award is Keiko Bruce, a Year 13 student at One Tree Hill College in Auckland.

The National Schools Poetry Award is an annual poetry competition for senior high school students in Aotearoa run by the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka University | Victoria University of Wellington.

This year’s judge, the acclaimed poet Ruby Solly, selected Keiko Bruce’s poem ‘Guilt Tank’ as the winner. In her judge’s report, Solly writes, “this prose poem feels like an entire film captured in a single carefully laid out paragraph of poetry… I think this poem says so much about our rhetoric in New Zealand and how we often speak without speaking, there is something dark and alive within this work. It’s a poem that will stay with you for months after reading it.”

Keiko Bruce is a 17-year-old high school student from East Auckland. She’s passionate about mental health and explores its complexities through poetry – with hopes of continuing that journey through a future in medicine.

Visit the National Schools Poetry Awards website to read Ruby’s report and the other finalist poems. And while you’re at it – check out National Poetry Day’s calendar of events to see what’s happening across the motu today and over the weekend.

GUILT TANK

Mama never really wanted family pets. But these were second hand, so we had nine goldfish in a tank too tight to fit five. They were just fish after all.

We named only three of them. Not enough time to become accustomed to them all, before one by one, they started rotting. I guilted over each floating carcass. Even more so over the lifeless bodies on the morning carpet floor.

Sobbing doesn’t help with the guilt, but you can’t really help it. Fish

can’t scream; they just jump when they’ve had enough.

Mama, will you cry yourself to sleep like I did? I
promise, it won’t be your fault.

I could scream, but I choose not to. It is morning and my body aches on the wet carpet, hungover from tears.

They were just fish after all.