Paice wins ACU Poetry Prize

Kiama-based poet and author Christine Paice has won the $10,000 Australian Catholic University (ACU) Prize for Poetry for a poem about the death of her mother.

The winning poem, ‘Gabriel in the Playing Fields’, describes the final months of Paice’s mother’s life, followed by a supernatural imagined moment when a giant barefoot angel carries her into the afterlife. ‘As well as memorialising a precious, life-changing moment, Paice’s poem is also an attempt to explore of one of life’s biggest unknowns—the existence of the afterlife,’ said the ACU.

Paice had been finishing her novel The Oxenbridge King (Fourth Estate)—inspired by the 2012 discovery of King Richard III’s body under a carpark—when her mother died, and later decided to write the poem.

‘I’ve been over in England looking after my mum, and unfortunately, she’s no longer with us. This poem came out of that experience,’ said Paice. ‘It’s really normal for me to express one of the biggest events in my family history, the death of my mum, in a poem.’

Prize judge and ACU emeritus professor Margot Hillel said: ‘Paice’s moving and eloquent poem about her mother’s death opens with a remarkable observation about the nature of illness and death, in that we so often pretend everything is all right when confronted with something beyond our comprehension.’

The $5000 second prize was awarded to Carolyn Leach-Paholski for ‘a poem on the perils of climate change from the perspective of her husband’s childhood and their eventual marriage’. The $3000 third prize went to Jo Gardiner for ‘a poem that illustrates faith amidst trials and tribulations’. Also highly commended were poems from Tug Dumbly, Tric O’Heare, and Vuong Pham.

Ninety-two poems from the prize submissions are published in an anthology, edited by Hillel and fellow judge ACU professor Robert H F Carver, which was also launched at the prize ceremony.

Last year’s winner was Judith Beveridge for her poem ‘Two Houses’. More information about the prize is available on the ACU website.

Category: Awards Local news