Neville Carr, of Roslyn, said his wife Elizabeth Brooke-Carr lost her cancer battle in September last year.
Nearly a week after her death, Mrs Brooke-Carr’s poem Harsh Light was named the winner of a poetry competition run by Dunedin Public Libraries and the Neurological Foundation.
"I wasn’t sure to laugh or cry — so I did both," Mr Carr said.
His wife had worked as a teacher and counsellor at many schools in the South including Columba College, Kaikorai Valley College, Queen’s High School and St Hilda’s Collegiate School.
She began writing poetry in 1984.
Fellow members of the Otago Writers Network and Kath’s Writing Group compiled 38 of her poems for Caselberg Press to publish the book Wanting To Tell You Everything.
"I’m chuffed — it’s good," Mr Carr said of the book.
Many of the poems in the book were about his wife’s cancer battle and included Buzz Cut, a poem about having her head shaved, and The Vein Whisperer, about the first time she had chemotherapy.
Mr Carr is set to launch the book in a private ceremony at Dunedin City Library tomorrow, which would have been his wife’s 80th birthday.
At the ceremony, the new Caselberg Trust Elizabeth Brooke-Carr Emerging Writers Residency would be announced, he said.
