Tag: Writing

I write in many formats, but my first experience with crafting my own passage of words was
when I was seven or eight, bashing out a score of deranged orchestration on my
grandmother’s Yamaha. Growing up in a music-blooded family certainly gave me a push in
the right direction, as it wasn’t often when I was not surrounded by melodies and lines of
lilting notation. At thirteen, I had written my first album of songs. It was during the lockdown
period, and I found myself enjoying the time I spent poured over the black and white keys for
endless weeks, thankful for something to occupy my mind that wasn’t staring at a computer.
As time went on, I began to cling to my unhinged musical composition as if it was my
lifeline. It was the thing that stayed with me – when I moved schools because of a deep level
of harassment from peers, and getting through the weeks away from home because of
boarding in this new environment. After school days, I would lock myself in a forgotten room
full of windows because of the tired piano at the wall, layered with dust and old memories. I
would be lost for hours in the magical vibrations, any worry or pain kindly melting at the
pedals beneath my feet. I am now sixteen, and musical composition is just one of many ways
I poetically experiment with words. I do not spend as much time sleeping with my forehead
on the ivories as I once did, but I will forever remember the importance of music in one of
the hardest times in my life. My world would be immensely different without the intervention
of conscientiously structured sound, and I am forever grateful it has found its way to me.

Madeleine Walker
Diocesan School for Girls

 

From the author:
I have entered a personal prose on my experience with musical composition growing up. I explore the impact music has had on me in the past, and how it has helped me grow into a fulfilled individual with a passion for the creative world.

Soul Shine

You ask “How does music shape your world?”  Well, let’s see.

Crazy as it sounds, my Opa’s life was saved by music. My great grandfather adored the Opera, he would ride with two of his friends on their motorbikes for an hour every single weekend to see it. However, as a Jew he was seized in an attempt to flee the wa犀利士
r but by some miracle, the Nazi interrogating him was one of those two brothers, on the bikes, to the Opera in Vienna. With 24 hours and a blind eye turned, my Opa’s life was saved. Because that shared love of music and friendship was stronger than the politics of war. I wouldn’t be here without those trips.

Music holds our hand and keeps us steady when we want to crumble yet makes us feel like we’re flying when we want to touch the sky. After six years of chronic illness, now proudly 100% healthy, I can say first hand that music gave me an unjudgmental sanctuary. My playlist reflected where I was at every point on my journey and now being 100% healthy I’m making a new one that me feel like sunshine at every note.

Music moulds our world. I love to imagine my Opa sitting in that Opera House, beaming as those symphonies soared. To watch my Pa, his son, dance around the living room with my grandma his wife of 53 years, shining. Opera house or living room it all glimmers the same. Souls of the pieces and people whispering; thank you, thank you, thank you, to those we can see and those we can only sense.

So, if you want to ask me “How does music shape your world?”
I say it doesn’t. It creates it.

Emma Grazier
St Cuthbert’s College

 

From the author:
How music moulds the world, and my world. Music has a soul that connects us all and is strong enough to hold us up through the hardest parts of life such as wars and illness and there to celebrate in your happiest moment.

Woman. I am woman. If I admit I look quite pretty today, when the man across the street compliments me, I am arrogant. If I choose to work and stay a little later tonight, I’m a work-obsessed she-devil who doesn’t care for her family. If I attend my favourite singer’s concert and scream her name, I’m a crazy fan who doesn’t respect boundaries. If I help an eldery man with his groceries, I am a gold-digging heartless wrench.

Man. I am man. When I take off my shirt in the gym and flex my muscles in the mirror, I’m strong. When I stay late at work, I’m a driven businessman. If I vandalise public property after my footy team loses a game, I’m just a poor bloke letting off some steam. If I wink and cheekily grin at the elderly lady on the bus, she’ll laugh and call me a handsome young man. I’m passionate, and free to show it.

I cannot walk the streets alone at night. It is not god I fear, it is man. When asked why I fear men, I say I think they will rape me. They will beat me. They will kill me.

I enjoy walking alone at night; it is calming. When asked why I fear women, I say I think they will reject me. They might embarrass me infront of my friends. They might not laugh at my joke.

To men who are offended by this, please don’t be. It is not all men, but I have to assume it is if I want to be safe. The double standards that infect our society prevent me from sharing the same passions that many men have. Let me be passionate, show my heart, show my soul.

I have a lot to give.

Isla Kirkman
Western Springs College

 

From the author:
This is a piece of writing that I am passionate about. It is for women to relate to, and for men to learn from.

The Tree

After a sudden death in the family, we drove up to our lake house. Shortly after the arrival I found myself on  boat, which is odd because I am not a boat head, I am however a good sport.

Not long after the boat trip began is when I saw it, a  beautiful tree. It was an old red spruce, stick straight, standing alone near the water. Leaning at a beautiful, melancholy angle.

I ventured round the lake to the tree daily, during our stay.  In the morning and evening. It always looked perfect, like a tree a child might draw. Its shaded-out branches, now dead, were still hanging there like memories.

During my trips to the tree, as I stared at it, amid grief it seemed to say something specific: growing old can be frightening. But age can be marvelous.

On my final trip to the tree as I walked along the pebble shore, I looked at several trees surrounding the tree and saw they were dying to. Although none were as beautiful as the old spruce, it brought me joy knowing he hadn’t aged alone. I walked back to the house in peace knowing,  I wasn’t alone in my grief either.

 

Henry Ludbrook
Kerikeri High School

What brings me joy

Joy, what is joy, joy is a feeling happiness, compassion, love and warmth. Joy can’t be situated into one thing, because it isn’t one thing. Joy is a place, a place where you feel safe, joy is home. Home not just being a building with windows and walls, but home being the people who surround us, the people we choose to talk to, the people we choose to laugh and cry with. These people are our home. Home is the warm feeling that wraps around us, it’s the smile lines adjacent to our eyes, home is in people, our joy is in others. We find ourselves in others, we see the similarity between each-others humour, each-other’s eyes and smile. We see each-other in each-other, we see our joy in our homes, we see our homes in our people. Joy isn’t always a feeling of happiness though, it’s a feeling of warmth on a cold winters day, joy is the feeling of arms wrapping around the small of your back from the person you love. Joy is comfort, safety, trust. My home brings me joy.

 

Mackenzie McElroy
Baradene College of the Sacred Heart

Note from the author: Home is the warm feeling that wraps around us, it’s the smile lines adjacent to our eyes, home is in people, our joy is in others.

Years had passed since she’d held her violin. A beauty, having evaded the wearing of time, streamlined from years of daily practice—now baggage in the closet, collecting dust.

Her fingers slid seamlessly into the bow hold engraved into memory. Gazing at the aged patina on the violin, she reminisced.

The thrill of mastering—conquering—passages.

Bowing, as thunderous applause and whoops of admiration filled the great halls she’d once played in.

Her eyes traced the grain on the centuries-old wood as she recalled how her childhood self had powered through demonically difficult pieces, wanting to grow up faster than everybody else.

She breathed in the familiar musty scent of her violin. Waves of nostalgia crashed over her, a flood demolishing a house of cards, tears overflowing, overwhelming, as her chest panged with… what?

She hoisted the instrument onto her shoulder and began to play.

It had been a taxing, arduous past, with tears and discarded friendships, the stench of failure still stinging.

_____But hearing the music again, how it was bringing colour back into her silenced world, she realised what the familiar feeling in her chest was.

It was soaring—like her lyrical passages and melodic solos of worlds past.

It was joy.

 

Esther Oh
Diocesan School for Girls

 

Note from Author: A written piece on my joy—of getting out my violin and creating sounds that shine like jewels when you hold them up in the light. Music, my lodestar when times get tough and the darkness is beckoning. My violin, which cushions my love and pillows my joy when I play.

The NZ Suffrage Movement is a cornerstone of New Zealand identity, a flame to be carried from generation to generat犀利士
ion, not a history book page to be flipped through every few years.

Once, the women’s vote divided the nation. Now it unites us.

The Suffrage movement was revolutionary because of its commitment to inclusivity; the campaigners secured the vote for all women, Maori or Pakeha. We continue to praise what they achieved.

Yet we must approach with caution this communal pride. It was not our generation who granted women the vote. One hundred and twenty five years ago, we were at the forefront of women’s rights.

In 2018 to remember is not enough.

We cannot rest on our laurels; we must continue to take action to improve the position of women in New Zealand.

The Suffrage movement serves as a continual motivator to speak up for the voiceless women, for the women who will follow in our footsteps, for the women who lit the flame.

Sophie Dixon
St Cuthbert’s College

For generations, it went from a someone’s daughter, sister, wife to inexplicable paths that women before my time so fearlessly fought for is a gift and a blessing I could never possibly return but simply receive and use it to my best advantage. To occupy the areas that they were locked out of to the best of my abilities, to adopt the same determination, grit, and perseverance and not just allow closed doors to stop me, but to open them because that’s how doors work.

The Suffrage Movement means the small exteriors like just simply being the way I am, a woman, do not define who I am, but what I will bring to the world. It does not mean to take over the world, but to take over the places open to others, which are open to me.

I have gained a freedom, and it does not cage me into a box, it sets me free, for this to happen before I even knew I was in a cage it is simply unfathomable, and I can only be grateful, and be inspired. In my heart, giving up is no longer an option, it is totally out of the equation.

Kudzai Biri
Carey College

he fight for women’s rights, to have my say and to be heard.

I am lucky.

Growing up I never questioned my right to vote. I had options, I could dream, I could change the world. My mother. Hard working, selfless and determined. Never able to access high school or tertiary study. Coming from Ghana, money can often be a barrier for education because of the low economic surroundings.

The right to vote, gives women a choice to their own bodies and their own life.

As a young women growing up, I am thankful. Thankful that I can choose, that I am heard, and that I can make a difference.

At University, I want to study towards a Bachelor of Social Science and International Relations. In New Zealand, the idea that women cannot vote is unfamiliar. Yet there are women around the world who don’t have this same opportunity. With this, I plan to head abroad, helping those in poverty and in particular women across the world, improving educational rights, giving empowerment and allowing human rights to all.

As women have taken a stand for their freedom, I will also do the same for myself and others.

Savannah Sullivan
Kamo High School

125 years.

Spanning more than a lifetime ago, the Suffragette Movement in 1893 has left me with a life of freedom.

A life of choice and opportunity.

Some people like to think these achievements were so graciously granted to us by the testosterone dominated government and that they weren’t the result of years of ‘nasty women’ fighting for gender equality.

But they should know, we are never given societal change. We fight for it.

The line of strong women from which I derive from perfectly reflects these ideals. My grandmother; a child of the First Wave of Feminism, was grateful to be given the right to vote and worked like a nursing trailblazer in one of few acceptable career options for women. My mother has lived through the Second and Third Waves, not being afraid to protest societal expectations of women whilst choosing to be a stay at home mother.

The Fourth Wave is mine, and by channelling the strength of the ‘nasty women’ who fought before me, including those in my family-tree, maybe in my lifetime I’ll be able to see girls grow up in a bias free world once misogyny dies.

Kate Edgar, Kate Sheppard…. Maybe I’m next?

Emily Turnock
Baradene College of the Sacred Heart