Montana Poetry Day Friday 18 July

If you've been into a library this week you'll notice that Montana Poetry Day is coming up tomorrow. Montana Poetry Day is part of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Originally conceived as a way to increase interest in the poetry finalists, the day has taken on a life of its own. It is celebrated all over New Zealand with poetry readings, samplers and posters.

Rodney Libraries have been displaying poems and encouraging you to add your favourites to the Poetry Wall. Some libraries have an epic poem where you can add a line or two.

Tomorrow Wellsford Library will host Poetry Hour at 4pm where you can read your poems to an appreciative and supportive audience. All libraries will be giving away poetry samplers with poems from this year's finalists. Look out for poems on the pavement tomorrow as well. A couple of pictures from last year are in our Flickr stream.

We've had the first entries in our Podcast Poetry Competition. Listen to them from the competition website. There's still a few days to left to get your entry in if you're in Years 4-13.

Finally, here's a link to the Montana Poetry Day website where NZ poets have been sharing their poems.