Winner: ‘Precedent‘ by Andrew Last
That rare thing: a non-ponderous sonnet sequence full of surprising imagery, humour and light touches. The poet is obviously at home with the form, the way they vary stanzas and run meaning from one sonnet to the next. Ironic, witty, plays that shock the reader … full of great lines: ‘Here is a familiar blue continent where/ it never rains. But menopause is responsible for/ my mother’s nightmares of Cubism … What kind of artist am I? A sandwich’ and ‘Like a myth, we have been pushing the envelope up the hill’. A greater range of reference than most, too, with ample connections beneath its surface.
Runner up: ‘Haibun: History‘ by John A Scott
An interesting, formally ambitious poem which rewards re-reading. The more you look at it, the more impressive it gets. Very literary; very accomplished technically, with all sorts of deft and clever gestures, and a whole weight of postmodern poetic reading and experience behind it.
Highly commended: ‘Feverfew‘ by Gita Mammen
Clever, surprising, intelligent, inventive, formally adventurous, this poem skilfully creates and sustains a surreal atmosphere … nicely sensuous.
Michael Farrell's
I Love Poetry and
A Lyrebird: Selected Poems are both out this year (2017): from Giramondo and Blazevox, respectively. His scholarly book,
Writing Australian Unsettlement: Modes of Poetic Invention 1796-1945, was published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Melinda Smith is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Goodbye, Cruel (Pitt St Poetry, 2017) and Members Only (with artist Caren Florance, Recent Work Press, 2017). She is a former winner of the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award for poetry and her work has been widely anthologised and translated into multiple languages. She is based in the ACT and was poetry editor of The Canberra Times from 2015 to 2017.
http://melindasmith.wordpress.com/
David Brooks, a vegan and animal rights advocate, who lives in the Blue Mountains of NSW, is co-editor of
Southerly, Honorary Associate Professor of Australian Literature at the University of Sydney, and the 2015/16 Australia Council Fellow in Literature. His
The Book of Sei was described as ‘the most exciting debut in Australian short fiction since Peter Carey’s The Fat Man in History’. His second novel,
The Fern Tattoo, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin. His fourth collection of poetry,
The Balcony (2008) was called ‘an electric performance’ by the
Sydney Morning Herald. His latest is
Open House (UQP, 2015).
