Siti Nur Aina Binti Mohd Nazlee (left) with her parents Siti Hasnah and Mohd Nazlee.
Siti Nur Aina Binti Mohd Nazlee (left) with her parents Siti Hasnah and Mohd Nazlee.
AMarton student is one of four young people selected to participate in this year’s New Zealand Society of Authors’ Youth Mentorship Programme.
When Siti Nur Aina Binti Mohd Nazlee, who is a student at Nga Tawa Diocesan School, applied to the mentorship programme she was not sure she would hear back at all – let alone being told she was selected.
“I was fully certain I wasn’t going to hear back – so it was definitely a happy surprise.”
The programme offers four young writers the chance to be mentored by a successful Kiwi writer.
In Siti’s case, she will be mentored by poet Kiri Piahana-Wong whose poems have appeared in more than 50 journals and anthologies including Landfall, Poetry NZ, Essential NZ Poems and Puna Wai Kōrero.
Siti said she had a video call with Piahana-Wong which was their first time meeting, and she was super excited to be working together.
“It’s wonderful to be paired with someone who understands the importance of cultural diversity and its implications on one’s understanding of the world. Hopefully, our mentorship will even influence areas of my life outside the written scope.”
Like Piahana-Wong, Siti is also interested in poetry.
“I found beauty in the way people used it as a medium to speak from their hearts, thoughts and memories. It simultaneously protects the writer from over-exposing themselves while, in the same breath, showcases these unsaid words in an art form.”
Siti Nur Aina Binti Mohd Nazlee (right) with family.
Siti said she liked poetry because it reminded her that there would always be someone out there who understood and related to her.
She hoped her mentorship under Piahana-Wong would help develop her writing skills – specifically her ability to better formulate her thoughts, instincts and emotions into well-structured sentences.
“It’s very easy to lose yourself when writing poetry - whether it’s from a personal or creative standpoint. I find that ideas usually cloud my judgement and usage of literacy techniques, ultimately leading to a neglect of thought into improving the quality of my poems.”
While poetry is not something Siti, who wants to work in policy-making or social change, wants to pursue as a career, it is something she would like to do as a “side hustle”.
She has goals to publish her own spin on a collection of art, photography and poetry – because “why limit yourself to one medium”.
Siti’s mentorship will run throughout the rest of the year and she will work on a project, which she has not yet chosen, under the guidance of her mentor.
