LITERARY COMPETITION JUDGMENT

Te Ao Hou, June 1959, Page 15

LITERARY COMPETITION JUDGMENT There were more entries to our fourth literary competition than to any of the previous ones and the quality had also gone up. The English entries were judged this year by Mr Alistair Campbell, the only modern poet of Polynesian descent to have made a national reputation in New Zealand literature. He is employed by School Publications as editor of some School Journals. Here are Mr Campbell's comments: “I have awarded first place to ‘Goodbye,’ by Tirohia, and second to ‘The Battle that Received a Name.’ Both I think are worth printing. I put ‘Goodbye’ ahead of ‘The Battle’ because I felt that Tirohia writes with more than usual insight about an everyday situation and so invests it with charm and poignancy whereas A. G. Armstrong, who skilfully reconstructs a Maori battle much as it might have happened, merely presents surface impressions and never gets inside his characters, although they are carefully described. It is in fact the descriptions of the customs and the events that give the story its interest. It is to his credit that ‘Tirohia’—and to a lesser extent the other Maori entrants—has dispensed with the usual ready-made plot and easy characterisations and has written directly and honestly about things that are real and significant to him. ‘Goodbye’ is only a sketch, but it is the kind of thing we ought to encourage for it is alive and full of promise.” ‘The Battle that Received a Name’ will be published in our next issue, and in addition three more stories, submitted for the competition in English, have been accepted for publication. They are by Mason Durie Jun., Kate Shaw, and D. M. Rawene.