Talented teen wows jury of poets

Talented teenager Eden Tautali from St Cuthbert’s College in Auckland has wowed the jury at the National Schools Poetry Award for 2011 with a personal account of grief.

The Year 13 student’s poem Nan addresses the death of her grandmother and the experience of speaking at her funeral.

Eden, who is of Maori and Samoan descent, was one of 10 finalists in the poetry competition for Year 12 and 13 secondary school students, organised by NZ’s creative writing programme, the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) at Victoria University.

Judge and current NZ poet laureate Cilla McQueen says while the poem confronts loss and regret, it also has the comfort of warm memories.

“Nan is a difficult, honest admission of grief, written in restrained, effective language,” she says.

“I looked for imagination, a glimpse of a world beyond the poem, some engagement with contemporary life, and especially for that original spark at the heart of the finished work.

Eden’s poem was a standout, with its haunting image of grief whispering ‘to a bent microphone’.”

Eden and the nine other finalists will attend a one-day poetry master class at the IIML. She will also receive $500 cash, as well as $500 for her school library. Eden’s poem will be displayed on posters throughout the country.

Nan
 
At the funeral
we sang beneath
high-beamed ceilings
in yellow light filtered
through a stained glass jesus.
I whispered to a bent microphone
of fish bones and sick days
of hot cocoa rice and
early morning mutterings of prayer
and of you.
But when I stood above you
eyes cast down
fixed on your cold cheek
I couldn’t bring myself to
touch you.