Otahuhu Writers Working with Auckland’s Best

This year, the Auckland Writers Festival has granted Otahuhu College the Writers in Residence programme, an eight-week tutorship which bring some of Auckland’s best writers into the school to work with our young, talented writers.

This week, our students are working with well-known writer Stephanie Johnson, author of over 15 published works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Ms Johnson has been awarded several Montana Book Awards and co-founded the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival in 1998.

In addition to working with Ms Johnson, Otahuhu students have also enjoyed tutorship from accomplished Auckland poet Michael Stevens. Below is an example of the wonderful poetry produced by our students through this project.

Moving – by Lauren Smith (Year 11)

When I was eight

Unopened boxes brimming with belongings

Towered upon the wooden floor.

The floor was a battlefield

Of insect spray versus cockroaches

 

The place was musky

Mould spores drifting

 

In the damp apartment

I stood there worrying

Wondering if this moving would stop

 

Several nerves sparking unanimously

Butterflies morphing into birds in my stomach

Nervous about the curiosities

The questions

Solitude

 

The worry spread out to the future

An ink blotch covering a page

All on a five minute time span

 

I despised the area

Sand in my shoes, my face, my mouth

My skin was crying

It was like standing near a fire in Dubai

Such dull colours

 

Such strict rules

 

How will I fit in?

I know no Arabic

It's like random squiggles on a page

I know nothing about their clothes

Why the women are covered head to toe

I'm wondering if this moving would stop.

Otahuhu College would like to thank the Auckland Writers Festival for providing us with this wonderful opportunity to enrich the learning of our gifted English students.

In other English news, teacher Emma Norgate was awarded a scholarship through the Auckland Association for Teachers of English Language to attend the National English Teachers Conference which she attended in Northland over the past school holidays.  It is a privilege to have our Otahuhu College English Department represented at such a prestigious and worthwhile event, and we look forward to our continued engagement with the National English Teaching community well into the future.

- Neil Watson, Principal
Otahuhu College