Teenage poets speak for NZ

Four Auckland schoolgirls are on their way to Sydney to compete in the first transtasman high school poetry slam.

The Marist College students won the 2016 Word — The Front Line spoken poetry competition in August, beating 76 other poets from 25 Auckland high schools.

Jennifer Rockwell, Pearl Muzariri, Tiara Rico and Amy Crerar said spoken word was a way to make people pay attention to what they had to say.

Their poetry has tackled subjects including feminism and mental illness and they said it was an empowering way to vent their frustrations.

“It’s therapeutic because you’re talking about your problems to people who have to listen,” said Rico, 16.

“I have been taught to stand my ground and not let anyone push me around,” added Muzariri, 17. “When I go into a male-dominated society it’s just really empowering to be able to freely express that [through poetry].”

Muzariri said her teacher first suggested she give spoken word a go: “My teacher said, ‘You have a big mouth . . . I think this would be good for you.’”

The team must raise $2400 in the next nine days to get across the Ditch to take on Australia’s best in Sydney on October 23.

“Every time someone says ‘You’re representing New Zealand’ I freak out,” said Rico.

All four young poets are in their first year of performing spoken word and this was Marist’s first entry in the contest.

Despite being new to the medium, Crerar, 18, said spoken word was a way to “speak things that have been on my heart for a long time”.

Responses she got after performing her first poem, which dealt with social stigma around mental illness made her realise, “Wow, this is really meaningful.”

The Auckland Poets Collective, which helps run WTFL, joined the Sydney Bankstown Poetry Slam to make the transtasman battle happen for the first time.