A cool breeze blows across our fair city, bringing with it the scent of rain. Branches stir, a cat’s tail twitches — something is in the air. Well folks, it’s Phantom National Poetry Day, and that mysterious something you feel in the air is the library preparing its most joyous poetical news item of the season — sharpen your pencils and dust off those metaphors, for Tūhono is returning in October and November 2021!

Tūhono is Wellington City Libraries’ very own poetry journal for young poets aged 5-18. Unlike some other poetry journals, having your work accepted in Tūhono is not a competition — as long as you follow the rules of submission, every piece of work that gets submitted will be published. Tūhono first came into being last year, and was a roaring success, with nearly 200 of you submitting poetry on the theme of ‘connection’ during the month of November and being published in the inaugural tome (find it on OverDrive here!).

Keep an eye out here and on our social media channels for the official announcement next week of the new theme, submission deadline, and other features that will make Tūhono 2021 unique and unmissable. In the meantime, why not get the creative juices flowing by checking out some of the awesome poetry collections on OverDrive:

Tūhono 2020, Wellington City Libraries (ebook)

Tūhono : connection. This is the theme that binds together all 197 poems you are about to read, which were contributed by young Wellington writers aged 5-18 and collected by Wellington City Libraries throughout the month of November 2020. The year 2020 was challenging for many people. Some had to spend time apart from their friends and the people they love. Some had to find ways to live with uncertainty and the sense that everything might not be okay in the world. But taken together, these poems represent a constellation of thoughts, ideas, worries, anxieties, hopes, loves, and dreams about how we find ways to connect, even in the face of adversity. (Overdrive description)

The Realm of Possibility, David Levithan (ebook)

Enter The Realm of Possibility and meet a boy whose girlfriend is in love with Holden Caulfield; a girl who loves the boy who wears all black; a boy with the perfect body; and a girl who writes love songs for a girl she can’t have.
These are just a few of the captivating characters readers will get to know in this intensely heartfelt new novel about those ever-changing moments of love and heartbreak that go hand-in-hand with high school. David Levithan plumbs the depths of teenage emotion to create an amazing array of voices that readers won’t forget. So, enter their lives and prepare to welcome the realm of possibility open to us all. Love, joy, and these stories will linger. (OverDrive description)

Poems to Save the World With, Chris Riddell (ebook)

In Poems to Save the World With, Chris Riddell has selected and illustrated his very favourite classic and modern poems to galvanize, uplift and inspire you through these interesting times we live in.
This gorgeously illustrated collection, Chris’s follow-up to Poems to Live Your Life By and bestselling anthology Poems to Fall in Love With, will ignite your inner activist. Covering a wealth of subjects these insightful poems are brought to life with Chris’s exquisite, intricate artwork. (Overdrive description)

Please Excuse This Poem, Brett F Lauer (ebook)

One hundred poems. One hundred voices. One hundred different points of view. Here is a cross-section of American poetry as it is right now—full of grit and love, sparkling with humor, searing the heart, smashing through boundaries on every page. Please Excuse This Poem features one hundred acclaimed younger poets from truly diverse backgrounds and points of view, whose work has appeared everywhere from The New Yorker to Twitter, tackling a startling range of subjects in a startling range of poetic forms. Dealing with the aftermath of war; unpacking the meaning of “the rape joke”; sharing the tender moments at the start of a love affair: these poems tell the world as they see it. (Overdrive description)

SLAM! You’re Gonna Wanna Hear This, Nikita Gill (ebook)

It’s time to reclaim poetry. Collected by international poetry sensation Nikita Gill, SLAM! You’re Gonna Wanna Hear This is a joyful celebration of the ground-breaking poets making their voices heard in the spoken word scene. Empowering, inspiring and often hilarious, SLAMs are a platform for well-known and emerging talent from all walks of life where every style of poetry has a home. With poets such as Raymond Antrobus and Dean Atta guest starring alongside up-and-coming poets in the SLAM scene, this is the perfect introduction to world of modern poetry. Each poet will introduce their poem, tell you a little bit about themselves and give you a tip for preparing brilliant poetry for SLAMs. (Overdrive description)