Morning bus ride comes with verse on the side

On a foggy grey Hamilton day, poets and rappers came out to play.

Aspiring bards came and went, at the Montana Poetry Day event.

They gathered in Hamilton's Garden Place, delivering lines with poise and grace.

Their readings were flavoured with wit and flair, as odes and verses filled the air.

Hamilton bus commuters on route 13 got an early morning poetry fix yesterday as Laird McGillicuddy Graeme Cairns and Adrian Holroyd took turns reading poetry to passengers.

At midday, rappers Funk Village and Raglan-based hip hop and reggae artist Emily Sandford-May entertained a crowd of about 40 people at Garden Place.

The day wound up at Waikato Museum with an open-mic session for aspiring poets.

The annual national poetry day featured nationwide events.

The Times asked a few Waikato identities for their favourite poems and found a poet's heart beating - if somewhat irregularly - inside many.

All Black legend Colin Meads wasn't home when the Times called, but wife Verna suggested Pinetree's favourite poem was Three Blind Mice.

Mr Cairns said Denis Glover's The Magpies was his No 1 with its memorable opening stanza:

When Tom and Elizabeth took the farm

The bracken made their bed

And Quardle ardle oodle ardle wardle doodle

The magpies said.

Mr Cairns said the poem was a clever piece of social commentary and reflected his love-hate relationship with magpies.

"I'm so vehemently opposed to magpies that the hatred has crossed over to passion. The poem reflects my dance of opposites with magpies," he said.

Hamilton Mayor Bob Simcock said James K Baxter's Letter to Robert Burns had strong appeal.

Sport Waikato chief executive Matthew Cooper fingered Swimming Ool by Kenn Nesbitt as his favourite piece of verse.

The poem sports the cheeky line:

Yesterday, before I swam

I drank a cup of T

Now the pool is just an ool

because I took a P.

Waikato University English lecturer Dr Kirstine Moffat said Gerard Manley Hopkins' The Windhover was her favourite. She said the 1877 poem was innovative in its use of language and imagery.

As part of poetry day, the late writer Janet Frame was announced winner of the poetry category of the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards for her collection The Goose Bath.

Meanwhile, there was a man from Nantucket . . .