Sometimes the five words are so naturally absorbed into a poem that I have to read it a few times before I find them all. This didn’t happen with the mouthful ‘phantasmagoria’, although lines like ‘phantasmagoria fast-forwarded’, ‘a fantasy a fever dream / phantasmagoria’, ‘the phantasmagoria of man turned sepia’ and ‘the flavour of this curated phantasmagoria’, using alliteration, and the play of sounds, came closest. 

It was lovely to hear from one teacher who invited younger students to come up with their own meanings before they looked up the word in the dictionary. These included: ‘the name of a cocktail’, ‘an ancient dance’, ‘a spell’, ‘a type of bird’. Who’s to say these aren’t all true in the phantasmagoria of meaning? The other words writers had to include in their poems were: feather, whisper, time and eat.

We are delighted to announce the winning poets. The winner of Best Poem is Jason Lingard for his poem Nana and the winner of Best Poem by Under-16s is Miranda Yuan for her poem Gallery Exhibition No. 73.16. This edition we would also like to award a Special Mention to Bhaarati Sharma for her poem My Grandad is a Wizard.

Before sharing the winners’ poems, we are grateful to Read NZ Te Pou Muramura for letting schools around the country know about the competition, to The Cuba Press and Massey University Press for their support and for donating the prizes, and of course to the National Poetry Day organisers. And congratulations to the winners!

Jason Lingard is a writer and designer from Pōneke Wellington. He is currently completing the poetry workshop at the International Institute for Modern Letters. He is also working on a collection of poetry, and a non-fiction book about fashion and pop music. He has recently had work published with Circular, Void, Rat World, Tarot Journal, and Bad Apple.

Miranda Yuan goes to Burnside High School in Ōtautahi Christchurch and is an aspiring writer who likes experimenting with poetry and prose. She has attended Write On School for Young Writers since she was 11 because she can share her work with like-minded people and get constructive feedback. She is also a competitive rower and a choir kid.

Bhaarati Sharma is 9 years old and lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch with her family and her cat, Trixie. Bhaarati’s poem was inspired by her love of the Harry Potter books and movies. Sadly, she never got to meet her grandads as they lived in Fiji. Doodling and drawing flowers and butterflies is one of Bhaarati’s favourite things to do. She enjoys being with friends, learning about other cultures and meeting new people. Bhaarati can speak Hindi and a little bit of French. In the future, Bhaarati will be a cook or an artist or maybe both.

Read the winning poems on the Given Words website.