Fifty writers applied for the 2026 residency from a range of genres including novels, short stories and memoirs, and the judges were impressed by Manson’s outstanding poetry.
He works for The Wairoa Star as a journalist and bases himself between Napier and Wairoa.
Manson was introduced to poetry by a chaplain while studying at Victoria University in his early 20s.
“I came from a family of soldiers and rugby players and such, so I wasn’t really handling things that well,” he said, of dealing with a personal loss at the time.
“Poetry, I found, was a great way to express myself … speak out something I did not want to hold inside anymore.
“That’s how I ended up writing poetry.”
He switched from studying political science and business management, and began papers at Victoria University’s IIML in creative writing and poetry.
He has since been publishing short stories and poems “here, there and everywhere they will take me”.
“I don’t really write love poetry,” he explained.
“It’s very much a case of I’m putting down on paper what I don’t want inside me anymore.
“Things that I want to let go of. And I find that quite a good process of letting go.”
Manson plans to collate and edit his poetry collection during his stay at Rush Cottage in June, which includes about 50 poems.
Example of his work: ‘Pieces’
You have my love, but the littlest piece of it.
The piece that dreams of what could have been, or should have, or, if the cards had dealt differently, or the dice had landed elsewise, would have been.
You have my story, but the littlest piece of it.
A chapter in the story of who I am, and who I was.
A chapter bound with a beginning and end. A chapter concluded, resolved, and without foreshadow.
You have my heart, but the littlest piece of it.
A piece of flesh it will beat without, it will dream without, and love without.
A piece to be remembered in scar tissue and bruising, in dull aches on cold mornings, in the sum of who I am, who I became.
You have pieces, little pieces of me, nothing more.