By Natasha Fujimoto
AS soon as you see Riley Wooster, you just know that there is something of a writer about him. He has a quiet demeanour, whimsical saunter and a burning curiosity in his eye. But it is when Riley speaks that you can gauge the writer within. With an expansive vocabulary and a talent for detail, Riley can paint a picture with words.
Riley is an 11-year-old poet and on Sunday, July 24 at the Shepparton library, he won the prestigious Furphy Literary Award for Junior Poetry. ‘A Sea of White’, is the title of Riley’s winning piece, and it’s an eloquent, free-verse poem that employs clever metaphor, describing a legion of white corellas that swoop in to attack a farmer’s crop.
Poetry being his preferred genre, Riley says that the inspiration for the poem came from observing a flock of marauding corellas near his home during the summer and says that it took him about an hour to write the poem, with an additional half hour to edit.
When asked if he is a perfectionist, Riley said, “I try and get as close to perfect as I can when I write, because I know for a fact that no one’s going to ever write something that’s completely perfect. There’s always going to be something in it that could be better.”
