Eleven poems written by New Zealand secondary school students have been shortlisted as finalists in this year's New Zealand Post National Schools Poetry Awards. The winners will be announced on 28 August 2009 at a ceremony in Wellington. The competition, titled "Liberate Your Words" and open to Year 11, 12 and 13 students attending New Zealand secondary schools, attracted over 330 entries. It covered two independently judged categories, Best Poem and Best Lyric Poem, with all poems automatically entered into both. Six finalists have been named for each category, with one poem, by Auckland Girls' Grammar School's Georgia Boyce, shortlisted in both. Best Poem category judge, Jenny Bornholdt, one of New Zealand's most popular poets and former Poet Laureate, said: "I loved judging this competition. The best poems jumped out because they weren't shouting at me. They used language in fresh and different ways, they were surprising and they created a world within themselves. They were written by people with imagination." The Best Lyric Poem was judged by Jason Kerrison, well-known as the singer/songwriter of New Zealand Music Award winning band Opshop. The winning lyric will be adapted into a song and recorded by Loop. It will be performed by Mr Kerrison at the award ceremony next month. "I've had the unique privilege and opportunity to dip into these enormously talented poets' lives and get a sense of their worlds as well as the methodology they chose to articulate their perspectives as young New Zealanders," said Mr Kerrison. The category winners will each receive a cash prize of $500 and their schools will receive a $500 book grant for their libraries. The Best Poem winner will also receive a weekend for two at New Zealand Post Writers and Readers Week, part of the New Zealand International Arts Festival in Wellington in March 2010. Five runners-up in each category get a cash prize of $100. This is the third year New Zealand Post has supported the National Schools Poetry Awards which are run by Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters. It is the first year the Awards have been extended to Year 11 students. The New Zealand Post National Schools Poetry Awards are supported by Tearaway magazine, New Zealand Post Writers and Readers Week, the New Zealand Book Council, Booksellers New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and literary magazines Sport and Landfall, and the bNet. The finalists are: Best Poem Georgia Boyce, Epsom Girls' Grammar School, Auckland - Home Georgia Johnstone, Epsom Girls' Grammar School, Auckland - Barcelona's Sun Alisha Lewis, Epsom Girls' Grammar School, Auckland - Eighteen and Counting Charlotte Priestley, Epsom Girls' Grammar School, Auckland - Spanish Heat Birgitta Swanberg, Northcote College, Auckland - To My Ten-Year-Old-Self Charlotte Trevella, Rangi Ruru Girls' School, Christchurch - To a Sister Best Lyric Poem Charlotte Agnew-Harrington, St Cuthbert's College, Auckland - In Praise of the Girl Next Door Georgia Boyce, Epsom Girls' Grammar School, Auckland - Home Toni Duder, Epsom Girls' Grammar School, Auckland - Gambling with Matches Michelle Grafton, Hornby High School, Christchurch - Lost Hope Sammy Hickson, Middleton Grange School, Christchurch - You Just Can't See It Dylan Wharton, Edgewater College, Auckland - Distance