Anna Sjardin-Killick slam-dunks award at poetry event

Anna Sjardin-Killick took home the Spirit of the Slam award at the Tauranga Arts Festival's poetry slam event.

Never regret getting old. You are one of the lucky ones.

These sentiments were once imparted upon poet Anna Sjardin-Killick, which spurred her into writing a poem about life and getting older.

This is Life is one of the poems the Ongare writer and poet read at Wham Bam Tauranga Poetry Slam as part of the Tauranga Arts Festival event in October. She took home the Spirit of the Slam award that night.

Anna believes she was awarded the Spirit of the Slam due to the comedic element of This is Life and the candid tone of her second poem, Walls. She was called on to perform last-minute, as another poet had pulled out.

‘’I haven’t done live poetry for 16 years, so entertaining at Wham Bam Tauranga Poetry Slam was a huge thing for me, emotionally and physically,’’ she says.

Anna has spent many years in bed with disorders such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. She has also suffered from mental health challenges. But Anna feels she’s “coming out the other end”, and her energy levels are increasing.

She feels incredibly lucky, and her poems reflect this positivity. Like much of her poetry, This is Life was inspired by her issues and an appreciation of life, despite its difficulties.

‘’This is Life is not meant to offend older people in any way. It’s to hold them up as the lucky ones - they’re the ones who live.’’

‘’Having been sick for so many years, and in bed for many years, I have missed out on so much. I have written these poems almost literally in the dark, so to bring them to the light is so awesome. People have cried at my poetry. It’s amazing to think that we can all be so different and that we can all experience pain.

‘’It’s so nice when someone thanks you for putting how they feel into words, because they can’t find the words.”

Walls is a poignant poem about her journey towards a religious faith with more inclusivity, love and acceptance, she says.

Anna has a background in teaching, including teaching Spanish at Tauranga Boys’ College. But health challenges curbed her ability to work, and that’s when she set up copywriting business Anna Killick - Write/Proof/Edit.

She’s recently put together Poems for Foxes, which is a booklet she describes as “12 pages of a mixture of my more recent darkly comedic poems and a few hopeful, angsty ones’’.

Anna’s dark, funny poems sometimes have a slight rap rhythm to them. Inspiration has come from rapper Eminem.

“I just admire Eminem, I admire his craft. He plays with words, he snaps them off halfway and uses them in the next line, kind of a half rhyme - I am amazed at his craft.”

Last year, she won a writers’ residency, and she has twice won the Harper Collins United Kingdom and Agatha Christie Ltd ‘’write your own Christie’' award, in 2015.

Get more info at www.shadowpress.co.nz.

Excerpt from This is Life:

“So your back is a little bent

and your dentures are in Polident

Your bravado is not so confident

You’re not so much in your element

But dude, relent

I’m gonna tell you a secret

Getting old is not something you regret

It’s the luxury of the living

It’s the extra time you were given

Stop thinking only of yourself

You were given one more day than someone else.”