2026 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize shortlist
Our thanks to everyone who entered and supported the 2025 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. This year's judges were Island's poetry editor, Kate Middleton, incoming poetry editor Tim Loveday and Graeme Miles. We once again received close to 500 entries. Each judge read all submissions 'blind', and came to a collective shortlist of twelve poems.
The shortlisted poets/poems (in alphabetical order by surname) are:
Alisha Brown for ‘Two percent’
Emilie Collyer for ‘Royal’
Rico Craig for ‘Midnight bonsai’
Dan Hogan for ‘Whatever happens happens’
Caitlin Maling for ‘What I do at work’
Shey Marque for ‘The White Garden – A Fugue in E Minor’
Gareth Morgan for ‘Say LOL’
Genevieve Osborne for ‘River Hamlet’
Genevieve Osborne for ‘Paris Green’
Felicity Plunkett for ‘Leaves’
Svetlana Sterlin for ‘Day drinking on Caxton Street during a thunderstorm’
Troy Wong for ‘reverse cowgirl on the chemo bed’
The winner and runners-up will be announced in a few weeks. All 12 poems will be published in Island 177, out next month. In the meantime, the 2025 winners are published in issue 173. You can also enjoy reading some of the winners from recent years here.
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