Published in Overland Issue 246 Autumn 2022 · Judith Wright Poetry Prize Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2021, Judges Report Toby Fitch, Keri Glastonbury and Grace Yee 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: First place — ‘are you ready poem’ ‘are you ready poem’ takes the form of an introspective monologue on the grand themes of art and life by a (we assume) 30-something Turkish-Australian man-of-letters/bookshop worker and his fatalistic dreams of setting up an alternative economy: ‘black mountain and co-ops and unions and aris and zines and a koala logo’. When the local imam tells his father (who is desperate for his son to become a teacher) that ‘poets write the world into being’, this is contrasted with the increasing impossibility of living off a poet’s wage, despite the Bowie-esque refrain that ‘maybe we could become imams / just for one day’. ‘are you ready poem’ is a generational reprise around the theme of how to reconcile art and work. The poem’s use of prose form, eschewing all punctuation besides forward slashes, cleverly holds all its ideas and associations in the air, mimicking the work of a life lived precariously. Its final phrase, which bookends the poem and obliquely harks back to Plato’s banishing of poets from his Republic, is a killer. Second place — ‘the national debt’ ‘the national debt’ is an extraordinary poem written in a ‘jazzy’ improvisational style that deftly interweaves sociopolitical critique with personal observations and reflections on the everyday. Appeals for the excision of social ills (‘incarceration’; ‘conspicuous plunder’) are braided with (what appear to be) random memories, wry observations and desperate ironies (‘the economy loves you more than you could ever love yourself’). Ordinary phenomena give rise to epiphanies (‘bright blue day and I just saw bubbles / a man is a finite resource’), and existential crises are triggered by life’s most mundane props (‘why milk? why today?’). In this world, in which the superficialities, excesses and absurdities of life in a soul-sucking neoliberal economy are rendered barely tolerable, the value of everything—including poetry—is interrogated, and the only way to survive is to keep moving. Third place — ‘stones’ ‘stones’, in its condensed evocation of a mother’s illness and despair, makes great use of colour, imagery, tactility and emotion. With some stunning lines, such as ‘mineral compensation for an empty womb’, each tercet crystalises experience for the speaker until the standalone last line hits home with a new, heartbreaking understanding of her world. This prize is made possible with the support of the Malcolm Robertson Foundation Read the rest of Overland 246 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Toby Fitch Toby Fitch, living on unceded Gadigal land, is poetry editor of Overland, a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Sydney, and the author of eight books of poetry, including Sydney Spleen and Where Only the Sky had Hung Before. More by Toby Fitch › Keri Glastonbury Keri Glastonbury is a poet, essayist and senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle. She is also former poetry editor of Overland. More by Keri Glastonbury › Grace Yee Grace Yee teaches in the writing and literature programs at the University of Melbourne and at Deakin University. She is currently a Creative Fellow at the State Library of Victoria. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Meanjin, Rabbit, and Poetry New Zealand Yearbook. More by Grace Yee › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 9 February 202427 February 2024 · Prizes Final results of the 2023 Judith Wright Poetry Prize Editorial Team 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, Andy Jackson, Autumn Royal, Elena Gomez and Toby Fitch (who is also Overland’s poetry editor) read nearly 700 entries before selecting a shortlist of eight outstanding works. The judges then chose three unforgettable […] 2 February 20242 February 2024 · Judith Wright Poetry Prize Announcing the 2023 Judith Wright Poetry Prize shortlist Editorial Team Established in 2007, The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for new and emerging poets is supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation. Entrants must have no more than one collection of poems published under their own name. This year, the major prize is $6000, and second and third prizes are $2000 and $1000 respectively. All three […]
