Kerrin P. Sharpe is a teacher of creative writing. She completed Bill Manhire’s Original Composition class at Victoria University of Wellington (1976). Over the last four years she has been published widely in: Best NZ Poems 08, 09, and 10; Best of the Best NZ Poems, Turbine 07, 09 and 10, Snorkel, Bravado, Takahe, NZ Listener, Poetry NZ, Junctures, Sport and The Press. In 2008, she was awarded the "New Zealand Post Creative Writing Teacher’s Award" from the International Institute of Modern Letters. She was featured Poet in Takahe 69.
in the days of your fathers
she returns to the forest
to plant yellow stars
and sews the flat faces
of children onto the skirts
of Polish mothers
trusting the earth
with their names
there are no words
for children stacked like bricks
the sigh of chimneys
there are no answers
in the great ovens of Europe
flames from her camp number
stir her shoulder
