And the winners are...

We are delighted to announce that the winners of the 2023 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize are:

Winner
Brigid Coleridge for 'Day 210'

Runners-up
Chris Andrews for 'Shedload'
Shey Marque for 'Improbable Acts of Proximity' 

Highly Commended
Caroline Reid for 'Rhyming Poem'  

Kate Middleton said about this year's winners: 'This year’s Prize brought a wide range of entries that showed the many strengths and wide-ranging passions of contemporary Australian poetry. The winning poem “Day 210”, by Brigid Coleridge, is a timely poem that combines striking imagery, a supple sense of the poetic line, and an ease with dialogue in a narrative of encounter taking place against the distant backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Runners-up Shey Marque and Chris Andrews offer expansive poems that repay more than one reading: both are inventive, layered and bring the repeated jolt of surprise.  Caroline Reid’s commended poem is a careening reinvention of our notions of rhyme, and what does and doesn’t correspond'. 

All winning and shortlisted poems will appear in Island 167, out late March. You can pre-order your copy now, or subscribe here. In the meantime, enjoy last year's winning poems via the previews below, and from other years via Island Online. 

A very special thanks to our judges, Island's Poetry Editor, Kate Middleton, Jill Jones and Shastra Deo, and to our Prize sponsor, The Hobart Bookshop.