The competition is already in full swing and each day my inbox opens with a new selection of poems and short stories. It sure beats the meeting reminders and booking confirmations that I usually get! Here are a couple of entries I have received so far.

Ark in the Storm

A world of violence
floods television screens
and dark images
of smoke and ash
burn in my mind.

Tawhirimatea sends tornadoes
to split apart the armies.

Ruaumoko erupts in anger
and volcanic clouds cause aeroplanes
to crash.

Ranginui cries like a storm
seeing man destroy the earth.

After the earthquakes
with a hammer and saw
I built a wooden boat
like Noah's ark
to escape from the flood.

By Devin, 10 years old, Linwood Primary School,

I am feed

I am feed, from the waters that flow past me, little spume dance for me.

I am old, older than time itself, I am woven throughout history, and I have always been there

I was once vast, vaster then the ocean, that's when only the spume danced for me.

I remember when it happened.

They split, and ran away, slowly, but I was torn.

I remember when the spume danced for others, not just me, all the seas and all the oceans, not just me.

But then, I reached it again, the ocean.

And then the little spume danced for me.

By Geena, 15 years old, St Andrews College