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14 June 2010 – A Million Poems for Matariki: Devonport

Last year students from Devonport schools wrote more than 1,000 poems to celebrate Matariki. This year, local children are being challenged to write even more.

A Million Poems for Matariki is a poetry project that encourages creative writing as well as helping build local communities.

The project has been organised by Devonport Community Coordinator Maire Vieth, who developed the idea in 2009, and the Michael King Writers’ Centre.

Several posters have been designed to celebrate different aspects of Matariki, including stars, kite flying and harvesting. Children write their poem on the posters, which will be gathered up and displayed around Devonport village. Adults are also welcome to write a poem.

Award-winning local poet Michele Leggott will lead poetry writing workshops in local schools during the project. The schools taking part are Devonport Primary School, Vauxhall School, Belmont Primary School and St Leos Catholic School. Workshops will also be held at Northcote College.

The workshops will be held during Matariki, which starts today and runs for about a month. Students will be invited to read their poems at a community event that celebrates Matariki through dance, storytelling, and other activities at the Devonport Library on Wednesday 30 June, from 6 to 7:30 pm.

Poetry posters are available from the Devonport Library as well as the Devonport Community Coordinator’s office, upstairs at 3 Victoria Road. The completed posters need to be returned to 3 Victoria Road by Monday 28 June, so that they can be put on display around the village over the school holidays.

Afterwards, the posters will be collected and bound together, to be held for future reference at the Devonport Library.

A Million Poems for Matariki is also being run in Otahuhu and later this year it is proposed to offer a series of poetry workshops, along a different theme, to schools in Waitakere.

Michael King Writers’ Centre Manager Karren Beanland said A Million Poems for Matariki is part of an innovative wider project that encourages creative writing and community development.

“Writing poetry is a fun and effective way to introduce children to creative writing.
Poetry encourages children to play with language. Poetry can involve performance, so it incorporates the oral traditions of many cultures.”

The project has been funded by a grant from the North Shore City Council’s ARST fund, a fund established especially to support the arts across the Auckland region. The grant is being used to develop the poetry posters, teaching material and community resource kits.

Some of the poetry posters, the teacher resource material and a kit about how to carry out a school or community poetry project will be made available through the nzepc (the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre) web site, which is supported by The University of Auckland. This will become an on-going community resource. The templates for community poetry projects will cover different themes, as well as Matariki.

“The 2009 experience of A Million Poems for Matariki shows that poetry can be used as an agent to strengthen community ties. We are trying to build on that idea this year,” Karren Beanland says.

“This project is an exciting collaboration involving the arts, community development and education across the Auckland region.”

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