Massey poets in the running for Montreal prize

Massey poets in the running for Montreal prize

Two Massey University poets from the School of English and Media Studies are the only New Zealand entries selected for the long list of the prestigious C$20,000 (NZ $21,500) Montreal International Poetry Prize.

Poems by creative writing Associate Professor Bryan Walpert, based at the Manawatū campus, and Auckland-based creative writing PhD candidate and teacher Johanna Emeney were chosen for the 70-poem long list from some 2,000 entered from countries around the world.

Dr Walpert and Ms Emeny were long-listed for their poems Smoke and There will be no horses here, respectively.

Dr Walpert has made the long list in all three competitions of the biennial event. In 2013 he also made the shortlist of 50 for his poem Aubade.

Ms Emeney completed her PhD last month on medical language and themes in poetry, and hopes to publish a collection of poems, titled Family History – about her mother – written as part of her doctoral thesis, for which Dr Walpert was her primary supervisor. Dr Jack Ross, who teaches creative writing at Massey’s Auckland campus and is managing editor of Poetry New Zealand, was her co-supervisor.

This year’s Montreal Prize judge is Irish poet, Eavan Boland, one of Ms Emeney’s favourite poets. “Having taught the poetry of Eavan Boland to many classes of sixth form students in the UK, I get to experience the fantastic feeling of knowing that she's holding my poem in her hands and reading it. That's crazy!”

Both poets have had other recent successes. Dr Walpert this year published his book of poetry and prose poems; Native Bird (Makaro Press), which made it to the Nielsen Weekly Booksellers list for New Zealand fiction.

The US-born writer’s third poetry collection uses his interest in birds – and the language that describes them – as a lens for his observations and insights as a new migrant. The collection has been well received by reviewers, including the Listener, and Dr Walpert has been invited to read from the work later this year at events in Christchurch, Wellington, and Melbourne.

Ms Emeney was commended this year in the UK-based Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, with a poem from her PhD called And then it spreads. She was runner-up in 2011 for the prize, which attracted around 1,500 entries from 23 different countries across the globe, with professional and amateur poets submitting pieces on a medical theme. In the same year, she published her first poetry collection Apple & Tree (Cape Catley).

She is currently working with the Young Writers Programme, an outreach programme of the Michael King Writers’ Centre on Auckland’s North Shore. Her PhD topic has resulted in invitations to talk to trainee doctors at the University of Auckland’s Medical School, to give “a greater insight into the position of both doctor and patient”.

The Montreal Prize publishes the top 50 poems of each competition in its Global Poetry Anthology Series with Vehicule Press. Its website says the competition is; “committed to encouraging the creation of original works of poetry, to building cross-national readership and to exploring the world’s Englishes”.
The shortlist will be announced later this month, and the winner announced in September.

“It’s an honour to make the long list again,” Dr Walpert says. “And what a pleasure to see Jo’s work there, as well.”

Check the website for the Montreal International Poetry Prize here to read the long listed poems. Three poems each week are being published throughout the competition.

Massey University’s Master of Creative Writing is now open for enrolments for 2016. A new undergraduate major in Creative Writing in the Bachelor of Arts will be available from next year.

ENDS

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