Cham, Jenkins named joint winners of Anne Elder poetry award

Australian Poetry has announced joint winners of the 2019 Anne Elder Award: Cham Zhi Yi for blur by the (Subbed In) and Gareth Sion Jenkins for Recipes for the Disaster (5 Islands Press).

A judging panel comprising Gig Ryan, Marcella Polain and Rae White said blur by the is a ‘refreshingly innovative exploration of the doubled identities of a Malaysian past and Australian present, of distance and proximity, and their gradual convergence into an independence that defies either tradition’.

Of Recipes for the Disaster, the judges said it is a ‘destabilising travelogue of love, friendship, and adventure that evokes an irresolvable tension between familiarity and strangeness’.

Another two collections were commended by judges:

• The Empty Show (Alice Allan, Rabbit Poets Series)
• The Things the Mind Sees Happen (Belinda Rule, Slow Loris series/Puncher & Wattmann).

The Anne Elder Award, established in 1977 and valued at $1000, is awarded annually to the best sole-authored first book of poetry in Australia. This year, each co-winner receives $500.

This is the second year the award has been presented by Australian Poetry, having previously been presented by the Victorian branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers.

For more information about the award, see the Australian Poetry website.

Category: Awards Local news