Blake Poetry Prize 2024 shortlist announced
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, in collaboration with WestWords, has announced the shortlist for the 68th Blake Poetry Prize, worth $5000.
The Blake Prize is an open poetry prize that ‘challenges poets, both national and international, in conversations concerning faith, spirituality, religion and/or belief’.
Judges Simone King, Ellen van Neerven and Peter Ramm said selecting a shortlist of eight from 575 entries was ‘a very difficult task’. ‘The poems collectively offered a wonderfully diverse array of forms, voices, language and engagement with the concept of spirituality. Some poems made us laugh, others gave us tingles, some surprised us, and others revealed connections between things that we thought were unrelated. The experience of engaging with the submitted poems was incredibly enriching, and we consider that it has expanded and deepened our own understandings of contemporary spirituality.’
The shortlisted works are:
- ‘Jinda’ by Evelyn Araluen
- ‘God, the Sestina’ by Stuart Barnes
- ‘Taking you home’ by Adrienne Eberhard
- ‘Three Lessons’ by Coco X Huang
- ‘An Addict’s Benediction’ by Scott-Patrick Mitchell
- ‘Etymology of paalam’ by Kaya Ortiz
- ‘Constellation Rifts’ by Alicia Sometimes
- ‘October’ by Mark Tredinnick.
The winner of the prize will be announced on 18 May.
More information about the shortlist can be found on the WestWords website.
Category: Awards Local news
