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Mercedes Webb-Pullman wants poetry out in the open.
“It shouldn’t be kept just for special occasions. I’d like poetry to be something we’re in contact with all the time in the ordinary world,” she says.
With this in mind she entered the Whitireia Creative Writing Programme’s Eat Your Words poetry competition, which asked café-lovers to make poetic submissions about their favourite haunts. And beat 226 entries to win.
Webb-Pullman is working towards a Master of Arts in Creative Writing through Victoria University.
Her poem I miss you mentions the Raumati South café Lembas in its first line.
“I read at their open night once a month and I like to sit outside on the tables there in the summertime”
The poem contrasts the warmth of a summer day’s end with the chill of loss.
Wellington poet and competition judge Jenny Bornholdt judged the entries blind.
“It’s a very simple poem but very beautifully expressed, the writer had paid a lot of attention to the words, to the line breaks, and the whole shape of the poem,” Borholdt says.
Webb-Pullman’s café also gets special mention from the judge.
“Lembas was named in an awful lot of poems, although most cafes in Wellington and on the Kapiti coast were mentioned.”
The poems had other effects on Bornholdt.
“It’s fair to say I ate a number of Neenish tarts and drank many cups of coffee while reading the entries,” she laughs.
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