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Winning poem written in minutes

Sammy Hickson

Sammy Hickson was the winner of the best lyric poem in the NZ Post National Secondary Schools poetry awards in 2009.

The Middleton Grange student won the prize in the first year that the competition was opened up to Year 11 classes. Her poem has been set to music by Jason Kerrison of Op Shop with Sammy playing flute and singing backing vocals. Get the MP3.

The Pulse caught up with Sammy Hickson, one of the country's top teen poets while she was “attempting to study for exams”  and preparing for the school play.

Her winning lyric poem, You just can't see it, took just minutes to write, she says.

“Everyone wants to hear that I slaved over it for days, but I wrote it in about five minutes actually. I kind of just write down things when they come to me and make lyrics out of them.”

The idea of a competition appealed to her.

“One of my best friends wrote down the link to the website and we’re quite competitive. So I said if she does it, I’m doing it.”

Song a 'warning'

Sammy says the piece is like a “warning” to young women who are trying to live up to unrealistic body image stereotypes.

“So many girls look in the mirror and want to change things. When you lose your insides because you’re so concerned with your outsides, you lose yourself. You lose your confidence and just become confused and go into a spiral downwards.

“It’s kind of like a warning song – it’s okay to lose a few kgs because you’re a little bit overweight – that’s not really the issue. There’s no use trying to do something if it’s really hurting you.”

Hickson didn’t tell anyone she’d entered the competition so that she didn’t have to tell anyone if she didn’t win. That meant a surprise for her mother when the organisers called to tell her she had to fly to Wellington to record with Jason Kerrison.

“He’s great, a top guy. It was a lot of fun. He involved me through the whole process, the whole way and told me to tell him if I don’t like something. It was real cool because it felt it like a real team effort – they all did a fantastic job.”

Two days to record

It took two days to write and record the song, which Sammy sung backing vocals for and played the flute on.

Hickson got “text after text” after one of her friends appointed herself Hickson’s publicist. In the future she plans to “take the world by surprise” and she considers herself fortunate to have had the opportunity.

“So many people want to do that, and so many people are great at it and write amazing songs – like my friend Becky, she writes amazing songs. It’s who gets chosen - no matter how good you are you might not get to [do it]. This is definitely a great head start.

“It was so cool to do them both. The writing thing was new to me, and recording … I loved it, it was amazing.”

September 2009