Established in 2007 and supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation, the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize seeks outstanding poetry from new and emerging writers.

This year’s judges, Toby Fitch, Astrid Lorange and Ender Başkan, read more than 700 entries before selecting a shortlist of eight poems. The judges then chose three outstanding poems to place first, second and third in this year’s prize. Look out for these poems when they are published in Overland later this year.

Overland, the judges and the Malcolm Robertson Foundation are thrilled to announce the final results of the 2024 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Congratulations to the following poets!

First place ($6000)

Neika Lehman

‘The Dog House’

‘The Dog House’ is a love letter and community record of life lived under the pool tables of the iconic Dog House pub in Nipaluna/Hobart. Cruising between the late 1800s to now, this poem tells the story of multiple lives lived and lost and how a few end up being remembered.

Neika Lehman is writer from Nipaluna/Hobart, living and working in Naarm/Melbourne. They descend from the Trawlwoolway peoples and grew up in the Palawa community of 1990s Nipaluna/Hobart.

Second place ($2000)

Laura Charlton

‘referencing suburbs’

Got mad at a reading night, started writing ‘referencing suburbs’, showed it to a friend who said I was doing the very thing I was mad about in the poem, they were RIGHT, I got madder, I kept working on the poem—it’s about trying harder to do what you’re trying hard to do!

Laura Charlton writes poetry, fiction, and plays. She is part of the editorial teams at Voiceworks and Going Down Swinging. She lives and works on Wurundjeri country.

Third place ($1000)

Joel Keith

‘Trans Pastoral’

The lake by which I wrote ‘Trans Pastoral’—Blue Lake, on Wurundjeri Country—was once a quarry, which was closed in the ’70s due to groundwater seepage; the moorhens the poem describes swimming on its surface were, in truth, probably grebes (a wonderful name for a bird, but one my poem could not account for).

Joel Keith is a writer and musician living on unceded Wurundjeri land. Their work has appeared in Island, Cordite, The Suburban Review, Overland, and elsewhere. They are an editor at Voiceworks.

The Judith Wright Poetry Prize is supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation