From a field of many hundreds and a remarkable shortlist of nine poems, the judges of the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets 2021—Keri Glastonbury, Grace Yee and Toby Fitch—have selected these three poems as the winners

they sailed into some savage country in 1926 on the ss victoria, incarcerated by a map of ideal drawings, dim in the hold. tea in the great depression was surreptitiously sipped. the spoons moved slowly. work involved a great deal of manual labour, oftentimes harsh.

when the black curtain drops in a back room at the airport. solo desk in the corner: union jack + southern cross + lipstick holder. white man drags a beat up fairlane, parks so close our mirrors touch.

It’s late Thursday evening the week before Christmas and Ma and Aunty Nola have flown into Melbourne because ‘poor wee Liza she got the brain tumour.’ On the airport travelator the two of them are a jangle of post-post-menopausal nerves, shrieking and breathless, giggling like schoolgirls staggering off a carnival ghost-train, oblivious to my silence, and to Kosta behind them heroically blocking their sliding suitcases with his caveman calves.

there is a species of tavern where drinkers make disparaging remarks about chinese immigrants. it is patronised by a squadron of pirates of otherwise sweet temperament,

we had a student from the middle kingdom stay with us for three weeks and she was perfectly happy here despite the multitudes of bullocks and a malfunctioning body scanner.