‘Unfinished’ poem takes out the big prize

‘Unfinished’ poem takes out the big prize

21 year old poet and civil servant Briar Rose Davies has just won first prize in the 2012 Eat Your Words Wellington cafe poetry competition. Her poem, inspired by Wellington cafe Memphis Belle, beat out 360 other poems celebrating the capital’s cafe culture.

Briar submitted three poems, including one she felt wasn’t quite finished, but judge Hinemoana Baker had other ideas. This ‘unfinished’ poem earned Briar $100 to spend at Vivo Wine Bar, and publication in the Eat Your Words cafe poetry book.

In Briar’s short poem entitled “Downpour” there’s water from Wellington’s bucket fountain and a unique interaction with a rain-soaked coffee receipt.
The poem was based on a story told to Davies about a barista from Memphis Belle who stuck a receipt to the jacket of a woman.

For Briar, the prize is perfectly timed. She is leaving Wellington on Saturday to be an assistant English teacher in France. She plans to spend her final Wellington night, and the $100 voucher, at Vivo.

If you’d like to read Briar’s poem you can buy a copy of Eat Your Words, a quirky little book of café poems, for $15 (email cafepoetrycomp@whitireia.ac.nz. It’s a book for Wellington cafe lovers and poetry readers alike, and was produced – amazingly – in two weeks by students on the Whitireia Publishing Course.

The Eat Your words competition is run by the Whitireia Creative Writing Programme. Forty sponsoring cafes give vouchers for 40 winning poems, and this year the final event was part of Visa Wellington on a Plate.

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