Tūhono, Wellington City Libraries’ poetry journal for children and teens, is now open for submissions for the next issue!

All throughout the month of November, we will be accepting submissions of poetry from young writers aged 5–18 in Wellington City. In previous years we have published more than 200 young poets in Tūhono — so this year we’ll again be splitting it into two books, one for kids and one for teens.

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 sent to us will be published. Tūhono itself — the collection of poetry from young people all over Wellington — will be published as an eBook on OverDrive, and in a limited print run for our libraries, so that everyone with a library card can borrow it and bask in your talent and glory!  

Check out previous editions of Tūhono on our catalogue here.

Theme

We want you to write a poem on the theme of “Whakangā | Breath.” Whakangā refers to the taking in of breath, or to the process of breathing. It also calls to mind the idea of inhaling from the world; taking a breath to create calm; taking time to stop, slow down, relax, be.Exactly what you write about in relation to this theme is up to you. You could write a poem about times when you feel calm or things that help you to feel relaxed; or you could write about things or feelings you experience when you might feel the need to whakangā. We recommend you look up the definitions of the words ‘ whakangā ‘ and ‘breath‘ in a dictionary to find out all the hidden meanings before you start writing. They don’t mean exactly the same thing — and that is intentional, to give you a wider range of stuff to write about. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!