New Zealand's Top Young Poet Announced

Monday 21 August 2006

Alisha Vara from Christchurch is the winner of the Bell Gully National Schools Poetry Award 2006, organised by Victoria University's Institute of Modern Letters (IIML). 

A year 12 student at Rangi Ruru Girls' School in Christchurch, Alisha received the prize at an awards ceremony in Wellington on Friday 18 August.  

Upon first reading, award judge and poet James Brown knew Alisha's poem was going to take some beating.  "Although other poems also impressed me, 'strawberries strung on lines' withstood all challengers," he said. "It is so accomplished that it wouldn't look out of place in the pages of literary magazines such as Landfall or Sport."   

Bell Gully has sponsored the awards for the past three years to encourage secondary school students to explore their poetry talents.