More students get the chance to showcase their writing talents in an expanded New Zealand Post National Schools Poetry Awards this year.

Entry forms and a creative writing teaching resource are on their way to every secondary school in New Zealand. Aspiring young poets and lyric writers are encouraged to submit works for two categories - Best Poem and Best Lyric. Entries close on 15 June and the winners will be announced on 28 August.

Eligibility has been extended this year to allow Year 11 students to enter the Awards, which were previously open only to Years 12 and 13 students

The Best Poem will be judged by one of New Zealand's most popular poets and former Poet Laureate, Jenny Bornholdt. Jason Kerrison, well known as the singer/songwriter of multiple New Zealand Music Award winning band Opshop, will judge the Best Lyric category. He will adapt the winning lyric into a song and record it with Loop Recordings.

Both judges say they are looking for a poem that "lifts" off the page through its freshness and interesting use of language.

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 next March. Five runners-up in each category get a cash prize of $100.

This year for the first time students can enter the awards online at www.nzpost.co.nz/poetryawards

This is the third year that New Zealand Post has been the principal supporter of the awards and Group Chief Executive John Allen looks forward to seeing the themes and subjects in this year's entries, especially with the addition of Year 11 students.

"People have told their stories and expressed their emotions for centuries through the powerful rhythm and tempo of poetry. It continues to be a compelling medium and, in its different forms, is as inspirational to people today as it has been for past generations."

Bill Manhire, poet and director of Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters, which runs the Awards, said: "Poetry is all about opportunity, about what's possible. None of the great poets did what they were told. Ezra Pound said famously that poets were the antennae of the race. And it's true: In poems, words are somehow more alert.

"I'm hoping that some of the poems this year will use words to give us a glimpse of where we might be going as a society and, of course, of the way our hearts just go on beating."

Last year's winners were Manon Revuelta, Epsom Girls Grammar School, Auckland, for Best Poem, and Sonya Clark, Karamu High School, Hastings, for Best Lyric Poem.

Manon, who is now studying at Auckland University majoring in writing studies and film, said winning the award gave her confidence to continue writing. "Before that I was kind of uncertain, despite having always enjoyed writing. It has also made me a lot more interested in New Zealand literature."

Sonya, whose winning Lyric Poem was adapted and recorded into a song by musician Samuel Flynn Scott, of the Phoenix Foundation, said the award had opened opportunities, with other approaches to put her poems to music.

She says she will always write. "Poetry is something I can't not do."

The Awards will again be held in conjunction with the New Zealand Post National Schools Writing Festival. Also run by the International Institute of Modern Letters, the Festival offers a unique opportunity for emerging young writers, poets and dramatists from around New Zealand to come together for a weekend of workshops and seminars under the tutelage of established New Zealand writers. Nomination forms for the Writing Festival are sent to all secondary schools. Participation is free and open to all, however spaces are limited.

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.