2016 Health Poetry Prize

The University of Canberra Health Poetry Prize was offered for the first time in 2016.

2016 Theme: Living Life Well

2016 Prize Results

The prize-winning poems were announced by Professor Diane Gibson, Dean, Faculty of Health, at the concluding event of the Poetry on the Move festival 2016.

First prize was awarded to Shari Kocher for her poem, 'The Glimpse'. It moves with great economy from a sense of struggle to an embrace of the world, and with sensuous delight. Its increasingly richly textured language is precise while retaining a sense of the elusive.

Second prize went to Sandra Renew for her prose poem, 'Mungo', a highly evocative piece of writing with some surprising shifts. Its telescopic movements reveal subtle understandings between human beings as a source of sustenance.

Third prize went to Andy Jackson for his poem, 'There was no consolation'. Its seemingly inconsolable title is countered by a poem that accumulates simple but intriguing detail, beautifully structured on the page.

The prize-winning poems have been published in the latest issue of Meniscus.

Eleven other poems were commended, as follows:

'2011' by Anna Jacobson
'As far as the east is from the west' by Kim Archer
'Disorders of the Blood' by Leah Kaminsky
'Food for thought' by Jacqui Stewart
'Hotline' by Dawn Seabrook
'My Father's Eyes' by Jena Woodhouse
'sleep' by Chloë Callistemon
'Song not for you' by Andy Jackson
'Things I couldn't say due to laryngitis' by Sarah Rice
'Trying to Write about Ménière’s Disease' by Heather Taylor Johnson
'Why can't the mind' by Jena Woodhouse

Details of the 2017 Health Poetry Prize will be published shortly.