The debut poetry collection will be published by Sudden Valley Press in August, with backing and enthusiastic promotion from the Canterbury Poets’ Collective.
John O'Connor, who the award was named after, was a Christchurch poet and critic. John leads the way for the strength of the Haiku in New Zealand.
O'Connor's accolades stretch from the co-winner of the New Zealand poetry society collection, and one of his books has been voted the best poetry collections of New Zealand in the 90's.
He was the co-founder of the Sudden Valley Press, however when he passed away in 2015, Sudden Valley went into hiatus - until now.
The competition has been roughly five years in the planning, with this year as the first one; and Collins as the first winner.
Her preparation for the competition started in January.
"Most of the stuff I do is quite last minute, so I had been on holiday and it was in my head that I had this deadline. It wasn’t until I got back from holiday that I saw the deadline and panicked and threw it all together.”
Collins says she had always been avid reader and writer, and studying and teaching creative writing gave her academic backing in the competition.
“I've always written, and the competition gave me the push to get all my poems into a manuscript. I got all my poems printed and stuck them on a wall to see if there was some sequence, and if they related to each other.”
The book is about 100 pages, with 50 to 60 pieces in it, therefore the collection took a lot of hard work.
Collins is undergoing cancer treatment, making her achievement even more admirable.
“In some ways going through treatment has been tough and there’s a lot about it that’s not good, but there’s always glimmers of gold in the worst situations and for me one of the great things about it is it allowed me to re-prioritise and focus on the competition.”
Collins says winning the competition was overwhelming and emotional, because of what she's been going through.
“I wasn’t at all expecting to get the number one spot, there were some really fine poets up against me.”
Judge Elizabeth Smither, a New Zealand poet and writer, has won numerous notable awards, including the top poetry award at the New Zealand book awards on three occasions.
Smither describes Collins collection as remarkable; not just for its range or titles or skill, but for the sense it builds of the poet as a personality.
“Whatever the subject, Rose Collins has the enviable ability to be both present and an observer at the same time,” Smither said.
Smither says it was some of the hardest judging she had to do. She notes all contestants have title pages that were 'practically works of art'. She claims they are so original and zany they could've been joined up in a long poem.
Collins is looking forward to her book getting published at the end of August, and is interested to see how it gets laid out.