The treasured items of Launceston pupils have been highlighted through poetry.
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Grade four pupils and a teacher from Launceston's Sacred Heart Primary School participated in the Poetry Object 2019 competition.
The competition challenged students years 3 to 10, and teachers, to create a poem inspired by a treasured, curious, or talismanic object.
Jasper Lee's poem The Magic Photo, was awarded highly commended in the primary section.
His treasured object was a photo of his father.
"Because my dad goes away quite often I have this picture so I can see him through it," he said.
A Cat by Benjamin Hiscox and Torrent by Italia Ciampa were also shortlisted.
Italia's poem was published in girl's magazine Kookie.
"I just put everything I learned into one thing, and made a poem," she said. "It was about a bird on a post, with raindrops falling down all over him, with a spiny leaf that looks like the Canadian flag in his hand."
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Benjamin said his poem was about his cat, Zipper.
"It was about just general stuff. She loves champagne ham," he said.
Teacher Bronwyn Lang also took out highly commended in her category with her poem, Josephus Problem.
Winning poems were selected from more than 2300 submissions across Australia and New Zealand with a total prize pool of more than $10,000.
Competition judge and award-winning poet Emilie Zoey Baker said it was an honour to get to read the shortlisted poems.
"There were some truly exciting new voices that I'm thrilled to highlight here," she said.
"I looked for poets that had a vision they wanted to share, and had found a way to draw the reader in."
Baker's tips on writing a great poem included not forcing rhyme, and if you do rhyme to make it something unusual. She also advised steering clear from words like thou and doth as they can be distracting, and to move away from cliches.
For more information about the competition, visit redroomcompany.org/projects/poetry-object.
The Magic Photo
By Jasper Lee
In the
world there
is this thing
called
the magic
picture
And there
is only
one of
them in
the world
And it
holds the
power of seeing
my Dad through it