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Geoff Page 12/3/26 Geoff Page 12/3/26

Intraocular – by Geoff Page

Suddenly, sans glasses,

I see new ranges reappear

complete with branches on a skyline

Georgina Woods 25/2/26 Georgina Woods 25/2/26

Augury: sea surface temperature charts – by Georgina Woods

WINNER OF THE GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2025

One line ravels from the record.

Many-ply plotted years bend

delicate as grass fronds, fold

more or less together.

The last years lie rosy loose

as new growth over coiled stalks

of before, but this year veers errant

up the axis into disarray.

Audrey Molloy 25/2/26 Audrey Molloy 25/2/26

Cold Water Swimming in Lyme Regis – by Audrey Molloy

RUNNER-UP IN THE GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2025

Out again, through the flounce of dulse and tangle,
out again, through the icy bands—

sea fingers clasping calves and thighs,
sea tongues lapping frozen lips.

At twelve degrees the shock can cause your heart
to founder if you enter suddenly;

Julie Janson 25/2/26 Julie Janson 25/2/26

My Kaathii Sister – by Julie Janson

RUNNER-UP IN THE GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2025

“She’s gone to Bourke on the back of a truck with that fatherless baby”

My mother laughs, and sighs, shutting her thin purse

A week of rough driving and sleeping under green canvas

We students live in the Anglican manse for free until Terese kissed

A blackfella, in 1972

Jena Woodhouse 22/1/26 Jena Woodhouse 22/1/26

The midnight shift – by Jena Woodhouse

Dementia gives way to lullaby,

the heartless learn to cry;

glistening quicksilver pools and loops,

the droplets weave and knit.

Damen O'Brien 17/12/25 Damen O'Brien 17/12/25

Basement – by Damen O’Brien

A hatch left open where we played, so we descended

into a subterranean place visited only by men in helmets

and hi vis as though preparing to navigate a labyrinth…

Jane Gibian 16/12/25 Jane Gibian 16/12/25

Dear neighbours, – by Jane Gibian

Hi Neighbours, I would like to introduce my dog

to kayaking. As step 1, I need to see how she goes

getting into it on dry land.

Ella Jeffery 5/12/25 Ella Jeffery 5/12/25

Honeymoon – by Ella Jeffery

You turned your face and did not speak.

You would not give this a place in our list,

withheld it from our memory’s consensus.

Maria Takolander & David McCooey 21/10/25 Maria Takolander & David McCooey 21/10/25

Game, Set, Match – by Maria Takolander and David McCooey

What will they make of this exercise

in geometry? You know, those survivalists,

those brute athletes from the future,

when they stumble from what’s left of the jungle

into this polyurethane field of past greats.

Rae White 2/10/25 Rae White 2/10/25

Is this devotion? – by Rae White

I am waiting for the pressed flower

stains of this blooming obsession

to wane. Once, I specialised in the quality

control of colours, of carefully taming

the bruised clusters of spring.

Beth Spencer 1/10/25 Beth Spencer 1/10/25

(five monostiches) – by Beth Spencer

Blueberry

Midnight seed in my palm, holding a star.

Mosquitoes

Miniature works of art, signed with blood.

Timothy Neale 23/9/25 Timothy Neale 23/9/25

Waterborne – by Timothy Neale

His father learned
to carry phrases

like light held
between two tenses

Omar Musa 10/9/25 Omar Musa 10/9/25

Alhambra – by Omar Musa

Mashallah —
tsk tsk tsk —
walls brim with barakas —
the Almighty’s horror vacui —
knotted Kufic, lattice-worked centuries —
rammed, iron-blooded, light-strafed earth —

Johanna Bell 22/8/25 Johanna Bell 22/8/25

If Anne Carson had grown up on a cattle station in the Northern Territory – by Johanna Bell

Smell
I will never forget.
Out behind the killing sheds.
Dry grass maybe a paddock or a holding yard no longer in use.
December, hot. Bull dust in our hair. We had gone to help his grandmother

Siobhan Hodge 8/7/25 Siobhan Hodge 8/7/25

Anglerfish – by Siobhan Hodge

She is coming to haunt us –

an ascending angel, serrated black pillow slip,

her beacon dim as her starblind eyes

She belongs to another world, a night away, swimming closer

for one last gasp.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell 16/6/25 Scott-Patrick Mitchell 16/6/25

My fisherman – by Scott-Patrick Mitchell

I know you in the brine-infused sea

an open wound that carries you away

into aquamarine photographs bouncing

between satellites before beamed

to my bed, a wreck where your touch

a ghost waiting to come hitch Anchorage

Toby Davidson 16/6/25 Toby Davidson 16/6/25

Rescue – by Toby Davidson

I hang out with what I suppose is your ghost

and call you by only the last of your names,

I in my new place and you in yours.

It’s waggling bliss before recall and what took you

snarl in combined from the teeth of an ocean

too broad to tear around, comical hound.

Alex Bennetts 2/6/25 Alex Bennetts 2/6/25

with flowers – by Alexander Bennetts

If you hide behind a mixed bouquet you can get out of a tram fine. You can get out of small talk when you’re hoarding grief like a bundle of paper straws. With flowers, your headshot could be a botanist’s pin-up.