Jackson wins 2022 SPN Book of the Year Award
Eleanor Jackson has won the 2022 Small Press Network (SPN) Book of the Year Award for her poetry collection Gravidity and Parity (Vagabond Press).
The winner was chosen from a shortlist of seven announced in October by judges Andrew Finegan, Penni Russon and Bec Kavanagh, and presented during the SPN conference as part of the Wheeler Centre’s Next Big Thing series.
The judges said Gravidity and Parity is ‘a deeply human and moving collection, and approachable for those who don’t usually read poetry’, in which ‘poetry becomes a natural language for capturing everyday experiences in the strangeness of 2020. The slow time of lockdown intensified by the slow time of pregnancy creates an aura of noticing everything, while the hyper-vigilance of scanning the media environment in 2020 is a poignant juxtaposition to the hyper-awareness of the deep interiority of the pregnant body.’
‘The medicalisation of pregnancy resonates with the themes of the pandemic in interesting ways, reminding us how much life and death (in their strange intimate dance) is outside our control; sometimes it seems as though the whole of society is constructed to conceal this fact.
‘So often in literature the pregnant body is a metaphor, representing myriad social anxieties and expectations about gender, humanity, the future. Here the body is the body, and the realities of pregnancy, labour, care and birth are relevant to the 100% of people who have ever been born.’
The judges said the book stood out in ‘a strong year for poetry’, with the works submitted for the 2022 award ‘demonstrating incredible breadth and diversity of voices and topics, though many collections touched thematically on the pandemic and experience of living in lockdown’.
Jackson, who receives $1000 and a $1000 printing credit, said winning the award is ‘an extraordinary honour’.
‘I’m in debt to so many friends, family, loved ones and my publisher, Vagabond, for the support they gave to not only this book, but also to the experience it documents: being pregnant during some of the hardest days of the pandemic lockdowns.’
Gravidity and Parity was one of two Vagabond Press books shortlisted for the award, the other being Theory of Colours (Bella Li). ‘We’re proud to have published both, as well as Jackson’s earlier and most excellent chapbook, A Leaving,’ said Vagabond Press publisher Michael Brennan. ‘We’re thrilled to see Eleanor Jackson’s work receive such well-deserved recognition and hope the award will bring new readers to her poetry, and inspire new work. Thanks are due also to the Small Press Network for all the excellent work they do to support independent and small press publishing in Australia.’
Formerly the Most Underrated Book Award, the prize was first presented under its new name in 2020 and aims to recognise ‘significant and groundbreaking’ books being produced in Australia. The joint recipients of the 2021 award, both essay collections, were Echoes (Shu-Ling Chua, first published by Somekind Press) and We Are Speaking in Code (Tanya Vavilova, Brio).
Category: Awards Local news
