An Interview with a Poet

By Robin Hartley | Posted: Thursday November 24, 2016

A Published Poet in Room 4

The interview

Harry is a 10 year old boy, who lives in Dunedin. He has been published twice in the newspaper, and the second time he was published, was a poem. See bottom of the article:

Harry Bates is a poet who gets his ideas for poetry from his surroundings. He thinks his poem ‘The Boy’ can be put on the front page of The New Yorkers Times. He has always wanted to be a writer, and he never writes about things that have happened to him. 

Harry thinks lots of children will be inspired by his writing, and poetry. He was able to write the amazing poetry in a few weeks. Though he said “I think I would have been able to write the poem in a few hours if I had done it in one shot.” I asked him what sparked his poem’s idea, and he simply said “The idea just came to me.” He doesn’t know whether he can become famous from his poem, and has been writing since school. He wrote the poem in mid June, and wrote the poem in school.

Interview by Sophie Wong

Photography by Cormac de la Harpe

The Boy by Harry Bates

The boy, he’d never seen the sky.

And every day with tears, he’d cry.

All the time he’d have to despair.

He thought his life was just not fair.

Endless days and sleepless nights.

It seems he had never seen the night.

Wearing nothing but some dirty capes.

Surrounded with some muddy drapes.

As he walked through his life he only felt tired.

Just some company and water was all he desired.

He slowly got older but he never felt alive.

Though he kept telling himself that he wanted to survive.

Climbing up high and digging down low.

Searching for places he’d rather go.

As time moved on he started to grow old.

And he passed through stages of hot and cold.

And soon came the day he was 78.

If he never got out would he get love or hate.

His feelings were filled with nothing but sorrow.

There was no knowing did he have tomorrow.

But one day from nowhere appeared a dove.

And for once he started to feel well’ love.

So in the end he didn’t feel that bad,

And oh what a journey this brave man had had.