Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize 2026 winners

This year's judges were Island's poetry editor, Kate Middleton, in-coming poetry editor, Tim Loveday and Graeme Miles. All judges read all submissions without author identification, and came to a collective shortlist before selecting the winner and two runners-up.

Winner
Felicity Plunkett for ‘Leaves'

Runners-up
Genevieve Osborne for ‘River Hamlet’
Svetlana Sterlin for ‘Day drinking on Caxton Street during a thunderstorm’  

Kate said of this year's winners "Felicity's poem 'Leaves', captures the heartsick fear of rushing to hospital for a loved one, dwelling in the urgency of the immediate moment and drawing the reader into emergency. Genevieve and Svetlana write poems that, respectively, occupy the rural and the urban, animating landscape and streetscape to reveal the power of what is just out of view, and what is inarticulable. The shortlist as a whole represents a rich array of Australian poetry, with poems that move through forms and traditions with ease and ambition." Read full judges' report.

The winning and shortlisted poems will be published in Island 177, out mid March. You can pre-order your copy now, or subscribe here.