The Wellington Writers Walk — AKA Marilyn Duckworth — challenge

8 Sept

Poets on the Wellington Writers Walk 2023: at the National Poetry Day event @CityGalleryWgtn Back: Mia Farlane, Jax Clark, Adrienne Matthews, Saige England, Kristen Phillips. Front — Poets on the Wellington Writers Walk 2023: at the National Poetry Day event at the City Gallery. Back: Mia Farlane, Jax Clark, Adrienne Matthews, Saige England, Kristen Phillips. Front: Sherrie Lee, Janis Freegard (judge), Bill Kelly, Bryony Rogers. Photo Credit: Shani Naylor

I don’t tend to write poetry. The last poem I had published was when I was a student at Wellington Girls’ College. This poem, published in the school journal, is called ‘Failure’. Very ‘on brand’, in that my first novel, Footnotes to Sex, is a tragicomedy about ‘academic unfulfillment’ (Viking’s publisher note) and a flailing long-term relationship (spoiler for whom it would be a spoiler: the novel’s title is ironic, there’s no sex in the book and it’s more literary fiction than the flowers on the cover might suggest — if you didn’t know that the image is by the feminist photographer Sophie Calle).

But back to poetry. When I worked at Southbank Centre’s National Poetry Library in London, I regularly overheard visitors say to each other as they wandered in 'I don’t read poetry, do you?’ Which I found a bit hilarious. I wasn’t laughing at these visitors, but more ‘with’. Because I get it; ‘I, too, dislike [poetry]’, to quote Marianne Moore. Or rather I don’t always get it (poetry), is the thing. But do you have to ‘get’ modern art? Colleagues and I had discussions like these now and then. (I love Kandinsky.)

I loved being able to read a poem or two while shelving — what a perk of the NPL job — and I was always discovering new poets when processing new acquisitions. I also got comps to literary events at the Royal Festival Hall and went to countless readings over the years.

Fast forward to July 2023: while on a reading writing mini retreat in Kāpiti, Aotearoa, Kristen Phillips and I both decided to enter the inaugural Wellington Writers walk poetry competition, 2023. Here is the remit:

The Grace challenge: write a poem that starts “there’s always an edge here”
The Kidman challenge: write a poem that includes the line “not a straight town at all”
The Manhire challenge: write a poem in 3 lines and/or 11 words
The Edmond challenge: write a poem that includes (or responds to) the line “It’s true you can’t live here by chance”
The Writers Walk challenge: write a poem that uses words from one or more of the 23 sculptures and puts them together (or adds to them) in a different way.

Kristen and I chose the last challenge, using a few words from Marilyn Duckworth’s benchmarks sculpture:

‘Then with the coming of darkness the bay opened up beneath us, like a shell splashed with beads of light.’

(Page 8 of her third novel, A Barbarous Tongue, Hutchinson, 1963.)

Kristen Phillips’ poem, ‘Writers Walk Sculptures’, won the Wellington Writers Walk challenge (AKA the ‘Marilyn Duckworth challenge’) category and mine (see below) was commended.

Thank you to Janis Freegard for her judge’s report.

And thank you, Tracy Farr, for creating this competition.