Poet and author Christine Paice has won $10,000 in the Australian Catholic University Prize for Poetry for a poem about the death of her mother.
Paice was in the final stages of writing her new book, a mystery novel inspired by the 2012 discovery of King Richard III’s body under a carpark, when her mother died.
“I’ve been over in England looking after my mum, and unfortunately, she’s no longer with us. This poem came out of that experience,” Paice said.
“It’s really normal for me to express one of the biggest events in my family history, the death of my mum, in a poem.”
Gabriel in the Playing Fields describes the final months of Paice’s mother’s life, followed by a supernatural imagined moment when a giant barefoot angel carries her into the afterlife.
As well as memorialising a precious, life-changing moment, Paice’s poem is also an attempt to explore of one of life’s biggest unknowns – the existence of the afterlife.
“I can’t think that this life is all the life that we have,” Paice said.
“I love the idea that there is something else that carries on. How it works we don’t really know, but I like exploring that as much as I can while being on the other side of it.”
The afterlife has been Paice’s focus for the past seven years as she developed and wrote her recent book, The Oxenbridge King.
Inspired by one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the century – the remains of King Richard III under a carpark more than 500 years after he died – The Oxenbridge King follows the controversial king’s attempts to pass through to the afterlife.
ACU Prize for Poetry judge Margot Hillel congratulated Paice on her emotive poem and her interpretation of this year’s theme, Faith.
“Christine Paice’s moving and eloquent poem about her mother’s death opens with a remarkable observation about the nature of illness and death, in that we so often pretend everything is all right when confronted with something beyond our comprehension,” Emeritus Professor Hillel said.
The ACU Prize for Poetry is one of Australia’s richest prizes for a single poem. The Prize is a continuation of the Catholic Church’s long tradition of being a major patron of the arts.
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