Welcome to the submission portal for the
Toitū He Kāinga 2025 National Poetry Competition!
Theme: Māori relationships with the built environment
This year's theme invites you to reflect on and respond to the ways Māori connect with the spaces and structures around us - from buildings like wharenui, homes, and schools, to roads, streets, parks, and other built or designed places.
You might explore how we live in, move through, remember, protect, reclaim, or reshape these spaces; or how our tikanga, pūrākau, and whakapapa influence the way we relate to the environments we built or inhabit today.
Poems can be personal, political, historical, futuristic...or anything in between!
Competition details:
- Entry is free and open to Māori aged 16 years and over.
- One poem per person.
- You can submit a poem in English or Te Reo Māori.
- Entries close at 11:59pm on Friday 22nd August 2025.
- All poems will be judged blind (i.e. the judges won't know who has submitted the entries when they are judging them).
- Winners will be announced in late September.
If you have any questions at any time, you can contact:
james.berghan@twoa.ac.nz
Click the 'next' arrow to begin your submission!