Rāmere Shorts

The first game of #RāmereShorts happened in 2010 and was the inspired creation of then Book Council communications manager Sarah Forster.

Over a decade later, the Friday ritual is still going strong: at 9am (or thereabouts) we deliver a set of six fresh words (now selected from an Aotearoa New Zealand poem) and participants craft them into their own small poem or story. A winner is chosen at the end of the working day: who used the words in the most original and clever way? Who made us laugh or cry or shake our head? Sometimes it just comes down to: who used all of the given words?

We hope you'll join us on Rāmere (Friday) to compose a little something and share it with our community. We love reading the entries and seeing how different thinkers use the same words.

This one was penned by Twitter user alexandra_balm:
The words were: year, grow, adore, full, collect, see.

It takes a full year
to see real growth
the light when branches
collect together
the dew of fruit in adoration
that only children
can see

In 2024, we're also bringing #RāmereShorts to Instagram! Check our Insta stories on Friday morning for your set of three words, and enter your three line poem in the question box. Just as on Twitter/X, we'll repost your entry for our community to enjoy, and announce a winner at the end of the day.

Around 9am every Friday (Rāmere) morning, we begin by posting six words selected from an Aotearoa New Zealand poem on our Twitter/X feed, and three on our Instagram stories.

To play along, use these words to compose a small story, poem or witticism. Post them on your Twitter feed, along with the hashtag (both #ramereshorts and #rāmereshorts will work, as will #RamereShorts and #RāmereShorts), or answer using the question box on our Instagram stories.

You can enter as many times as you like. Read the other entries and ‘like’ your favourites! When we see a new entry, we retweet or post a story from our account, and at the end of the working day we post a winner.

Character count

We recommend trying to use 140 characters or fewer, but this is a guideline. Note that on Instagram you will be strictly limited to the three lines allowed in the question box.

Using the words

Winning entries must use all six (for X/Twitter) or three (Instagram) of the words provided. These words can be tweaked to change the tense or plural, though. For example ‘begin’ can be ‘began’ and ‘dog’ can be ‘dogs.’

Judging

Around 5pm on a Friday, we’ll choose a winning tweet and story. We will usually go for the most succinct, moving, or funny entry. 

Group entries

We know of one office that plays #RāmereShorts together as a team-building exercise each Friday. Everyone votes on the best entry, then that one is entered in to the competition. There are also primary school classes who join in, and secondary school students, too.

We would love to see more work groups, families or schools take part! Please spread the word and join us.