Young women featured in this years winners of the Ballina Region for Refugees (BR4R) Poetry Competition with both the open and under 18 sections being won by a 16 and 15 year old.
The theme ‘Finding Freedom’ resonated with under 18 winner Yuna Cho (15) who entered the competition because she was ‘really moved by the theme and the whole of the Refugee scheme initiative done by the organisation. I wanted to help to support and raise my voice on the topic through the competition.’
Yuna’s parents immigrated to Australia from South Korea and she wrote ‘It’s Going to be Okay’. She explained that although she wasn’t a refugee, the idea of moving to another country to find a new haven resonated with her.
Announcing the winner, poet Dr Renee Pettitt-Schipp, who judged this year’s competition said ‘the most striking poems were those that really captured the shining humanity of many refugee people… and spoke of both the suffering and resilience of refugees.’
Dr Pettitt-Schipp’s work with asylum seekers in detention on Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands inspired her first collection of poetry.
Open competition
The open competition winning poem was ‘Meteor Shower’, by Selina Decarlo, a 16 year old Year 10 student from Sydney.
‘Some lines were so striking,’ Dr Pettitt-Schipp said, ‘(mum traces the golden moon with a careful finger, so as not to displace it) – I had to check and double-check that the entrant was also in the under eighteen section!’.
Selina, who describes herself as being of Asian-Hispanic background, said she only started writing seriously this year. Nevertheless, before winning the BR4R Prize she was a top ten finalist in the 2023 Young Authors Writing Competition run by Columbia University.
‘Winning this year’s poetry prize,’ she said, ‘has been an absolute shock and delight for me. It’s an honour to place first, but I’m more proud that my poem was able to resonate with other people, in what I hope was a meaningful manner.’
Refugee poet
The winner of the Refugee and Asylum Seeker Section was ‘Trap’ by Mohammed Ali Maleki, an Iranian refugee who spent seven years incarcerated on Manus Island. He is now living in the community, but, along with many others, is frustrated that he is not allowed to work or study.
The annual Poetry Prize, held in memory of BR4R member, Louise Griffith, was once again sponsored by on-line journal Social Alternatives, a publication that interrogates contemporary social issues. This year’s theme was ‘Finding Freedom’. The winning poems will be printed in Social Alternatives and on the BR4R website.
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