We have been delighted by the responses to the 2025 Waitaha English Writing competition.
This year, the competition required students to select form and content from our ‘bingo’ board, meaning that we had a wide range of reading. There were so many wonderful pieces:
We were charmed by Claire Zhao’s flash entry, ending in the beautiful lines “The rabbit lifted its head to cry. The moon joined hands to pray.” Sophie Davis’ riff on The Midsummer Night’s Dream followed teens “weaving through the madness” of a summer party, only to arrive at a surprisingly wholesome place, and Wei Feng’s flash tale of a climber who did not give up delivered a message that is useful for us all: ” The setting sun didn’t mean he had failed. It just meant it was time to rest, and try again tomorrow.”
However, there were two pieces that stood out. We’d like to congratulate the winner of the Junior division: Rory Willcocks, Year 10, Burnside High School, and the winner of the Senior division: Heidi Smith, Year 11, St Andrew’s College.
Both of our winners created work that was exemplary of the form. Rory’s burst of flash suggests a world and a story far beyond the words on the page, while still creating a satisfying piece in its own right. Heidi’s poem makes the abstract concrete and the concrete abstract, using nature to understand time.
Grenville
Rory Willcocks, Year 10, Burnside High School
I looked up from the valley floor, towering mountains lining each side of my view. Steep scree slopes lay at their bases, masses of loose rock accumulated over millions of years of erosion. I looked again at the valley floor, a largely barren trail of rock crossed by a small stream. It was streams like these that would eventually coalesce into the massive rivers that flowed into the vast Mirovian ocean. I pressed forward, taking another breath from my air tank. I could feel the sun beating down on me as I trekked onwards, an unrelenting titan looming above. I would have to remember sunscreen next time.
Up ahead, the mountains gave way to hills, and beyond that, a vast rocky plain. It was certainly awe-inspiring, standing amongst the towering Grenville mountains of the Rodinian supercontinent, although I couldn’t help but envy Richards’ team. Collecting beachside microbes certainly sounded more pleasant than baking in the sun. Regardless, I had more work to do. I needed to keep going.
Not Drowning
Heidi Smith, Year 11, St Andrew’s College
Knees deep in peat, a heron holds its pose
Beneath its feet,
the past ferments slowly—
logs turned to coal,
bones to myth.
The ground breathes beneath the moss,
sighing with secrets held for centuries.
the sun sets over the murky water
stained red and orange with light
Water hugs the soil, and holds time
not drowning it,
but cradling it
like a mother holds a sleeping child
Lichen decorates a drowned tree’s last thought.
Life, in the bog, grows because it should not.
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