2017 Prize winners
2017 Theme: 'Preservation and revitalisation of culture'
The University of Canberra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Poetry Prize aims to inspire others through poetry to consider authentic ways of presenting, preserving and revitalising the traditional culture and heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The poem may be focused on the verbal expression of culture, and can investigate where there is loss of language and culture the wide ranging impacts on culture, identity and health. This may include the intrinsic value of Indigenous perspectives, language transmission from one generation to the next, or describe the experience of, what is possible when preservation and revitalisation of culture is guided by institutions aimed at achieving a common purpose.
2017 Winners
First Prize: Jeanine Leane, ‘Still Gatherers’
Second Prize: Brenda Saunders, ‘Bush Tobacco’
Third Prize: Hugo Comisari, ‘Kookaburras, Carp and Concrete’
2017 Shortlist
Hugo Comisari, ‘Kookaburras, Carp and Concrete’
Jeanine Leane, ‘Exhibition’
Jeanine Leane, ‘Still Gatherers’
Brenda Saunders, ‘Bush Tobacco’
Brenda Saunders, ‘Desert Wattle’
Brenda Saunders, ‘Dharawala Country’
The prize announcement was made on Thursday 21 September, at 5pm within the concluding event of the Poetry on the Move festival. The prizes were awarded by special guest, Steven Oliver.
2017 Judge
Phillip Hall
Phillip Hall worked for many years as a teacher of outdoor education and sport throughout regional New South Wales, Northern Queensland and the Northern Territory. He now resides in Melbourne’s Sunshine, where he works as a writer, dividing his time between poetry, reviews and essays. He also works as an editor with Verity La’s ‘Emerging Indigenous Writers Project’ and as a poetry reader at Overland. In 2014 he published Sweetened in Coals. In 2015 he published Diwurruwurru, a book of his collaborations with the Borroloola Poetry Club. He is currently working on a collection of place-based poetry called Fume. This project celebrates Indigenous culture in the Northern Territory’s Gulf of Carpentaria.