2024 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize shortlist
Our thanks to everyone who entered and supported the 2024 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. This year's judges were Island's poetry editor, Kate Middleton, Esther Ottaway and Eileen Chong. We received close to 500 entries. Each judge read all submissions 'blind', and came to a collective shortlist of ten poems.
The shortlisted poets/poems are:
Emilie Collyer for ‘Lateral ambling gait’
Jo Gardiner for ‘Bendemeer’
Alison Gorman for ‘After 39 years, a Photograph Speaks’
Kerry Greer for ‘Three Days and Six Years’
Helen Jarvis for ‘and’
Sue Lockwood for ‘Morphology’
Damen O'Brien for ‘Collapsing Black Hole Sestina’
Rebecca Rushbrook for ‘After the Water’
Pip Smith for ‘The Waiting Room’
Yasmin Smith for ‘The Burial Feathers’
Kate said of the shortlist, 'In judging this year’s Prize, we have been struck by the wide field of poems interrogating different forms and musics in language while also addressing the dazzling variety of contemporary experience. The poems on this shortlist represent the profusion of exciting poetry being written in Australia today, and the ability of these poets to capture both what is fleeting and what lies deep in the heart'.
The winner and runners-up will be announced in a few weeks. All ten poems will be published in Island 170, out on 21 March, to coincide with World Poetry Day. In the meantime, the 2023 winner and shortlistees are published in issue 167. You can also enjoy reading some of the winners from recent years here.
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