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\u2019s outstanding poetry.<\/p>\n
He works for The Wairoa Star as a journalist and bases himself between Napier and Wairoa.<\/p>\n
Manson was introduced to poetry by a chaplain while studying at Victoria University in his early 20s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came from a family of soldiers and rugby players and such, so I wasn\u2019t really handling things that well,\u201d he said, of dealing with a personal loss at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoetry, I found, was a great way to express myself … speak out something I did not want to hold inside anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how I ended up writing poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n
He switched from studying political science and business management, and began papers at Victoria University\u2019s IIML in creative writing and poetry.<\/p>\n
He has since been publishing short stories and poems \u201chere, there and everywhere they will take me\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really write love poetry,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very much a case of I\u2019m putting down on paper what I don\u2019t want inside me anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings that I want to let go of. And I find that quite a good process of letting go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manson plans to collate and edit his poetry collection during his stay at Rush Cottage in June, which includes about 50 poems.<\/p>\n
Example of his work: \u2018Pieces\u2019<\/p>\n
You have my love, but the littlest piece of it.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
You have my story, but the littlest piece of it.<\/p>\n
A chapter in the story of who I am, and who I was. <\/p>\n
A chapter bound with a beginning and end. A chapter concluded, resolved, and without foreshadow.<\/p>\n
You have my heart, but the littlest piece of it.<\/p>\n
A piece of flesh it will beat without, it will dream without, and love without. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
You have pieces, little pieces of me, nothing more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifty writers applied for the 2026 residency from a range of genres including novels, short stories and memoirs,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[44974,1561,49530,1976,11676,5844,227180,13631,111,139,69,2878,29592,213,686,6202,40555],"class_list":["post-445230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-allan","tag-bay","tag-forget","tag-hawkes","tag-hell","tag-journalist","tag-manson","tag-never","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-poet","tag-residency","tag-sports","tag-week","tag-wins","tag-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}