Entries are now open for Australia’s richest prize for a single poem, where Australia’s top and emerging poets compete for the $10,000 first prize. Source: ACU.
Now in its 13th year, the ACU Prize for Poetry is open to new works on the theme of Belonging, inspired by a quotation from St Teresa of Kolkata: “If we have no peace, we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
With a winning prize pool of $18,750, the ACU Prize for Poetry has celebrated some of Australia’s best literary minds, including Christine Paice, Judith Beveridge, Mark Tredinnick, and Geoff Page, and launched the career of poet Anna Murchison.
The poems will be blind judged by literary expert Margot Hillel and scholar and poet Robert H F Carver.
Professor Hillel has high hopes for the 2025 entries.
“This year we are inviting poets from around the country to dwell on the nature and concept of belonging,” Professor Hillel said.
“Experts in a range of fields from psychology to theology say the modern world is experiencing a belonging crisis, driven by increasing wars, divisive politics, and a loneliness epidemic. But we also know that community bonds are being strengthened by adversities.
“I look forward to judging the varied interpretations on the theme which will no doubt enhance the already rich collection of poems this prize has received over the past 12 years.”
Professor Carver, who has published poems and short stories in Australia, the UK, and the US, said this year’s poetry prize was especially significant as Australia looks to appoint its first poet laureate. He said Australia had “never needed poetry more”.
“The rise of generative AI poses an existential threat to our humanity by usurping the functions of language and reason that mark us out as creatures made in the divine image. Poetry is a powerful weapon in the arsenal needed to neutralise that threat.”
The ACU Prize for Poetry is sponsored by the Office of the Vice President and follows the Catholic Church’s tradition as patron of the arts.
Entries for the ACU Prize for Poetry close on June 1.
Details: ACU Prize for Poetry website.
FULL STORY
