The Burial Feathers – by Yasmin Smith
Poetry Yasmin Smith Poetry Yasmin Smith

The Burial Feathers – by Yasmin Smith

WINNER OF THE GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2024

The afternoon’s powerlines are pebbled

with the chalky plumage of white cockatoos,

tipped with overblown flaxen feathers.

In the afternoon’s unfixed light,

I am reminded of the funeral parlour.

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Lateral ambling gait – by Emilie Collyer
Poetry Emilie Collyer Poetry Emilie Collyer

Lateral ambling gait – by Emilie Collyer

RUNNER-UP, GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2024

Square grey city apartment
Hindley Street Adelaide
with my siblings & mother
for a family funeral.

My bone density report
shows further deterioration
AP spine Osteopenia
& I’m losing height.

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and – by Helen Jarvis
Poetry Helen Jarvis Poetry Helen Jarvis

and – by Helen Jarvis

RUNNER-UP, GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2024

today I drove into a rainbow, its half-arch

picked clean and landing in the rubble beside

the new McDonald’s, and the wet road shone in my wake

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Washing my mother’s hair – by Helen Jarvis
Poetry Helen Jarvis Poetry Helen Jarvis

Washing my mother’s hair – by Helen Jarvis

My mother bends her head over the basin. Her skull is frail
as a scrap of bird’s egg, and I cover the tap with my hand to cushion it.
Hair spreads out red in the water: the red that was once the shade
of the carp in old Japanese woodblocks; the red that skipped me

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Visitor Ghazal – by Megan Cartwright
Poetry Megan Cartwright Poetry Megan Cartwright

Visitor Ghazal – by Megan Cartwright

In its practised temperance the monks’ routine compels sleep –

yet in this land I have no language; I cannot spell sleep.

 

Outsider – conspicuous. I imitate reverence.

I count sheep. In the dark my heart pounds like a death knell: sleep.

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The Edit / An Edit – by Michael Farrell
Poetry Michael Farrell Poetry Michael Farrell

The Edit / An Edit – by Michael Farrell

Immanence redirected. The infrastructure of the edgelord and the snowflake are the same.

Can power be generally oppressive? Up in the trees, radically outside the gift economy, radically outside bricolage. Read this sentence. Read this sentence linguistically. Tampering mid-ride.

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Telegram – by Natalie Susak
Poetry Natalie Susak Poetry Natalie Susak

Telegram – by Natalie Susak

In this language / I am trying / to carve / a home / for us.

This old wind / raises my hair / to my face / grazes the hair / of my arm.

Molim, I say, the way / they taught me / with tongue stopped / at the end.

I hate / to beg, but / when I search for words / I call to them / as if over

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