OVERLAND MAGAZINE JUDITH WRIGHT POETRY PRIZE for NEW and EMERGING POETS

Overland is proud to announce the results of the Overland magazine Judith Wright Prize for New and Emerging Poets, 2007.

The 2007 judge John Leonard writes:

Some 750 poems were assessed. Approximately fifty poems were short-listed, and from these the winner, runners-up and the commended poems were selected.
    In assessing the poems I used the two criteria I discussed in my essay in Overland 186, namely invention, the ability to imagine engaging and apt metaphors, phrases or other linguistic tropes to communicate thought and connectedness, the quality of poem which leads the reader through from the first to last line of the poem and guarantees its integrity. I believe that these two principles are consistent with the poetic practice embodied and espoused by the late Judith Wright.
    Also important to Judith Wright’s poetic practice was political and social engagement. Although not all of the poems short-listed or selected for notice were obviously politically engaged, all of them, I felt, had at least social engagement.

WINNER

The poem judged the winner of the inaugural Judith Wright Prize for New and Emerging Poets is ‘Chronology’. Author Georgina M. Bailey is accordingly awarded the $2000 prize; the poem appears in Overland190 and can be read in full here.
    In his judge’s report, John Leonard writes: “This poem is a big, rich poem which examines western civilisation from the view point of Kronos, the father of Zeus. It is bursting with ideas, observations and the absurdities of history.”

RUNNERS-UP

The two joint runners-up – each awarded $250 – are ‘Crush Depth’ by Roberta Lowing and ‘Women of Antiquity 2002’ by Julie Chevalier.
    ‘Crush Depth’ appears in Overland 190 and can be read in full here. John Leonard describes it as “an understated description of our society’s perpetual war-footing”.
    ‘Women of Antiquity 2002’ will appear in Overland 191 and can be read in full here. John Leonard writes that it is “an eloquent account of the lives of three notable women of antiquity, Hypatia, well-known, the others not so”.

COMMENDED

The following poems were commended:

• ‘The Real You’ by Ian Mills
• ‘Transformation’ by Paul Donatiu
• ‘Fire relies on the leaves of gum trees’ by Dominique Hecq
  
• ‘Art, Life and the Other Thing’ by Stu Hatton
  
• ‘The World of Slwop’ by N.T.L. Clugston
  
• ‘off white’ by Grace Yee
  
• ‘Poem about Itself’ by Phadrah Torelle Hirschfield
  
• ‘I need only hear your name’ by Karen Armstrong
  
• ‘Australian Eclogue’ by Dan Disney
  
• ‘Murray Valley Villanelles’ by Jillian Pattinson
  
• ‘a small treatise on captivity’ by Susan Fealy
  
• ‘Entrapment’ by Susan Fealy
  
• ‘Goneaway’ by Jim Dooley
  
• ‘The Mines’ by Lou Smith
  
• ‘The Same Old Song’ by Karen Atkinson
  
• ‘Behind the Lines’ by Sandy Fitts
  
• ‘Buckley under the playground’ by Anne Morgan
  
• ‘At Eyre Bird Observatory’ by Carmel Macdonald Grahame
  
• ‘Surfacing’ by Volker Beilharz

Overland magazine thanks John Leonard and all the poets who participated in the competition.

Dates for the 2008 award will be posted on the Overland website later in the year.