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Young poet chases second national award

Alisha Vara, poetYou can write poems about anything - even a fish in a garage. And however strange that sounds, it can be a recipe for success, as Alisha Vara found out recently.

Alisha, a Year 13 Rangi Ruru student, has been selected as one of two Christchurch poets that were finalists in the New Zealand Post National Schools Poetry Award.

“It’s really exciting,” she says. It’s such a great prize - the masterclass and meeting Bill (Manhire) and Andrew Johnston.”

Alisha’s poem lifetime(s) was short-listed, along with scarlet lips, by Michaela Ball of Cashmere High School, after what was a fairly simple entry process. “You just had to submit one poem - that was all,” Alisha says.

Writing has been something that Alisha, who won the national  award last year, has done most of her life.
“I used to write stories as a little kid, and I started proper creative writing in Year 9 and 10.”
It was a natural progression to write poetry, she says, and lifetime(s) recalls a “bizarre” childhood memory.

“I remember this guy knocked on the door, he was a family friend. My Dad eats fish, but not the rest of us - it was just really weird having this fish in the house. It was such a strange thing. Mum didn’t want to put it in the fridge - it was just really strange … so I think we just put it in the garage.

“We kept our bikes in there. I would go out for a bike ride and it would just be sitting there, looking at you…it was really scary.”

The fish stayed in the garage a day or so before it was cooked.

Both Alisha and Michaela have read their poems at the University Bookshop and will travel to Wellington for a poetry masterclass, where the winner will be named on August 17. One of the short-listed poems will be recorded by Barnaby Weir of the Black Seeds and will be available free on Digirama and iTunes.

The overall competition winner will take away a $500 cash prize and a $500 grant to their school library. The competition is run by Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters. It’s an opportunity Alisha describes as “amazing”.

“It’ll be so much fun going up to Wellington and meet people. Last year I met quite a few (young writers). It’s quite good to meet people your age who do the same thing. You can relate to them.”

Self-portrait as a microwave

MicrowaveThe finalists have been given an exercise to prepare - using everyday items to create unexpected poetry. Students cannot introduce words of their own, they all have to come from the text.

 “We have to take a non-literary thing, like a microwave instruction booklet, and we have to call it self portrait with a microwave (for example) - it has to be something technical - and we have to make poems out of that. It’ll be quite different.”

Poetry appeals to Alisha on all sorts of levels - emotional and creative. “Sometimes it’s closure - you write it down and it doesn’t have to be in you head all the time. Sometimes I have lots of little bits from everywhere and I put them all together. Sometimes if nothing comes out, I just have to leave it. Last term at school we had Bernadette Hall as our school Writer in Residence and we had about two classes a week. It was really good because we’d be used to coming down and having to write something - that got me going.”

Writing process enjoyable

Poetry’s reflective nature, dwelling on past events and memories, and the process of writing itself are things that Alisha enjoys.

“Sometimes the process that you use to writes something is quite complex - it takes a while. Normally I like to write on the computer - you can change things around. There has to be no-one around me. It has to be quiet.”
“Sometimes if you’re sitting on the bus, and you think of something, or you see something out the window that’s interesting - you might jot it down. All the people that come and go…”

Alisha isn’t sure she’d like to write a novel though.
“I don’t think I’d have the stamina. Sometimes with poetry you can say more in a short space - it’s compacted, whereas with a novel you can have the same amount of feeling in a novel as a poem.
“Maybe I prefer poetry because it’s just quick. It’s not quick to write, but it’s quick to look at and you can compress everything into that one thing - space saving.”
Alisha will study Health Sciences at Otago University in 2008, but doesn’t plan to stop writing any time soon.
“I’m definitely going to keep writing - I’ll see where it takes me I suppose.”