The prestigious Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Competition has been running for forty years, and this year, the organisers received over seven thousand entries from across Australia, with twenty-four entries coming from Marist Regional College. The theme for 2024 was ‘Listen, I have an idea!’ 

So, how do you craft a successful poem? There is no set formula when it comes to writing poetry. The word poetry comes from the Latin poeta, loosely meaning “pattern”. However, the patterns in poetry are highly flexible. Though there are many forms, strong traditions and high expectations, there are no universal “rules”. In poetry, the poet’s personal insight, words, images, themes and connotations are just as important as the patterns generated. 

Year 9 student Sanuli Karunaratne was awarded 1st place in the Junior Secondary Section of the 2024 Dorothea Mackellar Poetry competition. Her poem, cleverly titled ‘I have an idea’ had a “unique viewpoint with descriptive language and clever use of the suggested theme in the last line” according to the competition’s secondary judge, Karen Comer. 

William Blake’s words, “No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings” perfectly encapsulates Sanuli’s unique and powerful writing style. Her poetry is evocative, emotional and transcendent. 

For her outstanding efforts, Sanuli received a beautiful trophy, an Anne Knight limited print, $500 prize money and a $100 Dymocks gift voucher. Congratulations Sanuli. This is an incredible achievement! 

Mrs Nicki Rogers 

English Teacher, Extended Learning Key Teacher 


‘I have an idea’ by Sanuli Karunaratne 

i shiver in between the margins of my page, split 

into red rule and blue lines. they have grown stale, 

yellowed, the edges curling into itself from the forceful 

hold of time, but it is shelter enough for me for these 

few moments, for the first few seconds of my birth. 

eventually, when She beckons me forward, and 

i leave my stationery shell of comfort, tendrils 

of warmth releasing their grasp on my skin, i feel 

unbearably real. i can feel the imperfect pounding of 

my heart in the bone of my head, can almost taste the 

iron of the ink trickling inside my veins. my flesh 

feels scrubbed open, pink and red with vigour. the 

price of life is death, after all. 

yet She looks at me with trained disdain, the menacing 

hold of Her pen angled at me accusingly. What have 

you got to show for yourself? What makes you different, 

unique- what about you changes something in me? 

and i look up at her, tremblingly bare, the frost of 

judgment icing over my skin. She is my creator, 

my being, my life. She is my god, for she has my 

life dripping out of the piercing point of her pen. 

She clicks her tongue, my eyes, my body, every 

disfigured inch catalogued with the omnipotence of 

her mind. You are not good enough, She says. 

You taste of the sweetness of dewdrops. But you are 

not enough to make my tongue throb, to be the 

sinful drops of ambrosia that I desire. There is 

not enough in you for me to call home. 

You do not have enough of me in you to be perfect. 

and that is rejection, packaged into a polite parcel, 

exchanged coolly like business details. but for me, 

with Her, this is akin to the disowning of a child by 

its mother. to me, this makes the pounding of my heart 

come to an insignificant halt and makes the ink of my 

blood freeze into cloudy red crystals inside me. my skin 

turns pearly white, the suffocating colour of death, 

my paper cradle is crumpled in the infinite fist of Her 

hand, and i leave, becoming past tense. 

……………………………………………………………… 

my only revenge is that with me, i take a thin slice of 

her, a tiny shard of the mirror of her soul. 

………………………………………………………………… 

She sighs, in my aftermath. a graveyard of crumpled 

paper lies around her, a field of my slaughtered siblings 

leaking ink onto her floor. 

Again, She says, taking Her pen, brandishing it 

dangerously over another blank sheet of paper, but then 

She hesitates. for a moment, there is nothing but the 

echo of silence, and the musk of inspiration. 

Oh, She says. I have another idea.