The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize (2007-)
or The Overland Judith Wright Prize for New and Emerging Poets
Subcategory of Awards Australian Awards
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History

The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets was established in 2007 to foster poetry by writers who have not yet published a book of poems under their own name.

It is named in honour of Judith Wright, one of Australia's best-loved poets.

The prize is supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation, and is the richest and most prestigious prize for emerging poets in Australia.

Source: http://overland.org.au/prizes/ Sighted: 29/11/2013.

Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2023

winner Celestial Tree i "I woke to drink Kopi O kosong, which is Bahasa", Andrew Brooks , 2024 single work poetry
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 254 2024; (p. 114-116)

Year: 2022

winner Viriditas / Little Big Scrub Poem i "A roof must be pitched at some semblance of an Angle in order to catch the sun Photosynthesis", Abbra Kotlarczyk , 2023 single work poetry
— Appears in: Overland , Summer no. 249 2023; (p. 57-58)

Year: 2021

winner Are You Ready Poem i "1911 / governor of istanbul orders stray dogs to be rounded up and exiled to the island of", Ender Baskan , 2022 single work poetry
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 246 2022; (p. 70-71)

Year: 2020

winner Border Control : Meditations i "Were you born on a Thursday in Cleopatra", Sara Saleh , 2021 single work poetry
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 242 2021; (p. 57-58) Groundswell: The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Artists 2021; (p. 172-173) Best of Australian Poems 2021 2021; (p. 32)

Year: 2019

winner No Alarms i "Give the brigalows time to impersonate metal. Fold the final", Dan Hogan , 2020 single work poetry
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 238 2020; (p. 59) Groundswell: The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Artists 2021; (p. 87)

Works About this Award

Judges’ Report Jill Jones , Toby Fitch , 2017 single work column
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 226 2017; (p. 28)

'It has been a pleasure and an honour to judge the 2016 Judith Wright Prize for Emerging Poets. While reading the entries, we kept in mind Wright’s words on the central cultural role poetry plays:

I think poetry should be treated, not as a lofty art separated from life, but as a way of seeing and expressing not just the personal view, but the whole context of the writer’s times.

(Introduction)

2015 Judith Wright Poetry Prize Shortlist 2016 single work column
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , February 2016;
The 2015 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize Toby Fitch , Peter Minter , 2016 single work essay
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 222 2016; (p. 23-24)

Writing in June 1971 to the classical scholar and poet Martin Robertson, Judith Wright fondly remarked on a young man who was caretaking ‘Calanthe’, her forest home:

Now I am here again, and sharing the house with one of Meredith’s friends, a delightful young man who is reading his way onwards through all my books, hasn’t a penny and is technically on the run from the police, being a draft resister. [...] He has a very good mind, the kind that turns things over and comes up with the other side of them unexpectedly two days later as though the conversation was still going on. (Introduction)

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