Kerry McCluskey and Andrew Nungaq
Northern News Services

GRISE FIORD (Mar 08/99) - After they beat out thousands of other students to win a national poetry contest, three Grise Fiord residents said they felt inspired to pick up their pens more often.

"I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that I won," said Manasie Noah, one of the trio of students at Umimmak school to win the Poetry Institute of Canada contest.

"It felt pretty good. It inspires me to write more poetry," said Noah, 18.

With future hopes of becoming a Ranger or a police officer after he finishes school, Noah said the poem he submitted -- The present and the past -- was based on his heritage.

"I just dedicated it to my life and other people's lives. It's about how I live and how I come from my ancestors," said Noah.

And while he's dabbled a little with his pen in the past and written poetry about the land and its animals, it was Noah's teacher who was responsible for encouraging him and his classmates to participate in the contest.

Andrea Cameron, primarily an art and English teacher at Umimmak, asked her students to craft a poem as part of their class work when she saw the talented writing they were doing in their journals.

Founded as a way of encouraging the writing of poetry among young Canadians, Cameron saw the Poetry Institute as the perfect vehicle for helping her class to develop their writing skills. She explained that her efforts weren't too well received at the beginning of the project.

"At first when I said they had to write a poem, they thought I was crazy," said Cameron, who persevered, and managed to collect a piece of poetry from each of her students.

By December, the institute had been sent more than 2,000 entries from junior and senior high school students across Canada. But just 200 of them -- three of which were submitted by Cameron's students -- were selected to appear in a publication called Under the Maple Tree.

Cameron said that because some of her class had done so well, it had boosted the spirits of the rest of her students.

"It showed the students that they all had important things to say. It increased their confidence and desire to write," she said.

Eighteen-year-old Pauloosie Kigutak, the author of the winning entry, Moonlight, said it made him feel good to take part in the contest and that it surprised him to win. He said his poem was one of the few pieces of writing that he had managed to follow through on and complete.

"I try, but I keep giving up on it. I still keep writing them down and leaving them."

Kigutak said the inspiration for his winning piece came when he was sitting outside, smoking a cigarette.

"There was a full moon that night and it made me wonder about the things that happen when the moon shines."

Andrew Nungaq's poem, The night, was about using his imagination and dreams to see in the night.

"I just made one up. I tried hard to do the poetry writing," said Nungaq, 17.

Cameron, whose students were in the process of entering the NWT NorthernWrites contest, said copies of Under the Maple Tree would be available later this year from: The Poetry Institute of Canada, P.O. Box 5577, Victoria, B.C., V8R 6S4.