Poetry Shelf noticeboard: 2026 Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize winner – Linda Collins

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Linda Collins at home in Kakanui outside her writing shed with her debut collection, Sign Language for the Death of Reason.
Photo credit: Oamaru Mail

Linda Collins was awarded the 2026 Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize

“I am Linda Collins, and only started studying and writing poetry late in life in my 50s, in 2018, after writing my memoir about the death of my daughter, titled Loss Adjustment (Awa Press). I live at Kakanui, a small settlement on the coast south of Oamaru. My debut collection in 2020 was Sign Language for the Death of Reason, published by Math Paper Press in Singapore, and my poetry has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and was runner-up in the Mslexia Single Poem Prize. I have an MA from IIML and a Poetry MA with distinction from the University of East Anglia. I’m fortunate that the Poet Laureate, Robert Sullivan, lives in nearby Oamaru, and every Monday he hosts a poetry group for free in the Oamaru Library. These gatherings are amazing in how they involve the community, some of whom are completely new to poetry, and for how Robert conducts the group with such understanding and kindness. I’m also a member of the East Otago Poetry Group which meets at Waikouaiti Library, and the amazing talent in these rural poets is inspiring. People have been very encouraging about my work, and I am humbled to win the Caselberg prize ahead of some important, vibrant poets including Michelle Elvy, who has a new collection out, Motion Sickness; Margaret Moores; and the truly wonderful Sarah Scott.”

Full results

The winners of the 2026 Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize have been announced. The competition is now in its sixteenth year, and this year attracted 192 poems from New Zealand, Australia, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, UK, USA, and Venezuela. This year’s competition was judged by writer Emma Neale.

The winner receives a cash prize of $600, a one week stay at the Caselberg house in 2027, and their poem published in Landfall Tauraka 252 in November 2026. The two runner up poets receive a cash prize of $300.

Winner: Linda Collins, Rambling, Oamaru

Runner up:
Margaret Moores, Self-portrait: Still life 1973, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland
Michelle Elvy, Will, Ōtepoti/Dunedin

Highly Commended:
Janet Newman, Farmer Digs, Taitoko/Levin
Jessica Hinerangi Thompson Carr, Sycorax, Ōtepoti/Dunedin
Bee Trudgeon, Score, Porirua
Jodie Dalgleish, Beauty, Whanganui

Commended:
Wes Lee, Persephone and time in the Underworld, Te Whanganui a Tara/Wellington
Kunal Sharma, The attendance of ash, Delhi
Lee Fraser, Fear (Swadesh), Ōtautahi/Christchurch
Susan Wardell , Hare or Fear, Ōtepoti/Dunedin
Sarah Scott, Radiata, Te Whanganui a Tara/Wellington
John Kelk, Tuwhare, Muruhiku/Invercargill

The winning poem and Emma’s judge’s report will be published in November in Landfall Tauraka 252 – Spring 2026, and subsequently on our Caselberg Trust website along with the runner up, Highly Commended, and Commended poems.

In her judge’s report Dr Neale noted that ‘The 192 entries this year sent me off on a long and taxing quest. For extended reading stints, it seemed I was hunting for, say, a lost pounamu ring on a vast beach covered with stones glowing or glowering in every shade of green’.

Of the winning poem Rambling by Linda Collins she said ‘‘Rambling’ has fluent syntax and although dotted with contemporary language, it reveals a traditional notion of the poem. It’s tightly structured in ‘unheroic’ couplets; it’s bucolic in the sense that it celebrates a natural idyll, and the closure has the satisfying elan of a riddle arriving in almost the same instant that it’s resolved’

Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize page

Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Helen Rickerby’s writing workshop in response to the exhibition Slow Burn: Women and Photography | Ahi Tāmau: Māreikura Whakaahua

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Event by Te Papa

55 Cable Street, Te Aro, Wellington, New Zealand 6011

Join poet Helen Rickerby for a writing workshop in response to the exhibition Slow Burn: Women and Photography | Ahi Tāmau: Māreikura Whakaahua.

In association with VERB Wellington, join us for a day of photography and writing. Start the day in the Slow Burn | Ahi Tāmau exhibition as Curator Photography Lissa Mitchell delves into the stories behind the dynamic photographs.

Then, join poet Helen Rickerby to create your own written works of art inspired by the exhibition. Finally, finish with a Slow Burn-themed high tea to connect with other writers.

Limited to 15 participants. Booking essential.

Poetry Shelf Poet Laureate Postcards: The Remembered Forest by Robert Sullivan

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The Remembered Forest

I flew over the North Island in a jetplane
and noticed the clouds for once, how
they covered the land like a forest,
a huge forest billowing into the sky
with its fungi, insects, bacteria, spores,
cones, leaves, twigs, birds spilling up
like little mountains of life
and oh the streams of water
upwards and downwards
as I took a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Robert Sullivan

Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi Nui Tonu, Kāi Tahu Whānui) is the 14th Aotearoa New Zealand Poet Laureate. Among his sixteen books are the bestselling Star Waka, Weaving Earth and Sky and Hopurangi Songcatcher. He has won awards for his poetry, editing, and writing for children. His year 6 teacher at Onehunga Primary School, Mrs Naire, first inspired him to write poetry, which was a cloud poem. He lives in Ōamaru on ancestral whenua, the beautiful coasts of Te Tai o Āraiteuru.

Poetry Shelf Noticeboard: Michelle Elvy reading with James Erik Rachel Claudia & Tania at Scorpio Books

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Celebrating the new poetry collection by Michelle Elvy

with readings by James Norcliffe, Erik Kennedy, Rachel Smith, Claudia Herz Jardine & Tania Roxborogh

Join us for refreshments and a blast of poetry – all welcome!

Scorpio Books, Tuesday, 06 October, 5.30pm for a 6pm start

Info and rsvp at Scorpio

With each poem, Motion Sickness unfolds like a map charting the distance between individual and collective memory. Michelle Elvy’s accomplished collection is intimate in detail but never loses sight of the world around us, attentive to the light and shadow that accompanies our journeys through life.

–Chris Tse

Shortlisted    2025 Kathleen Grattan Award
Runner up 2026 John O’Connor Award

Poetry Shelf noticeboard: Airini Beautrais and Helen Lehndorf talk humour and poetry

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Need some extra salt on your lunch? In October, Airini Beautrais and Helen Lehndorf are visiting Wellington to talk humour in poetry and read a few poems from their recent collections ‘Salt Quilt’ (AB) and ‘The Bruise Palette (HL).

Poetry Shelf Monday Poem: ‘In the mangroves’ by Kiri Piahana Wong

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In the mangroves

Standing amongst the mangroves,
I notice how fiercely they anchor
themselves in the mud, how they
have chosen to make this sticky,
impenetrable place
their home.

I admire that. The idea that you
could flourish in a place others
avoid, that you would love it even.
I try to disentangle myself from
the mud, but my gumboots
are stuck.

I could leave them behind,
of course. I could choose
to simply step out of them,
to walk barefoot
into a new life.

Kiri Piahana-Wong

Kiri Piahana-Wong (Ngāti Ranginui/Chinese/Pākehā) is a poet and editor, and she is the publisher at Anahera Press. Kiri is the author of two collections of poetry, Night Swimming and Tidelines, and co-editor of the anthologies Te Awa o Kupu and Short! Poto! The Big Book of Small Stories. Kiri is passionate about poetry, decolonising literature, indigenous voices and breaking down barriers for marginalised writers. She also loves nature writing, food memoirs, romance novels and her eight-year-old son. Kiri lives in northwest Auckland.

Poetry Shelf’s Poet Laureate Postcards: ‘Early Class’ by Robert Sullivan

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Early Class

In 1978 in the old Onehunga Primary school hall
we met with a group of teachers and parents
to show off the new technology—a Casio calculator
which I demonstrated with a classmate,
and encouraged them all to use.
Our school principal, teachers, and my friend,
their faces now blurred on a platform
as my time train speeds by, just petals
pounded in the wetness of memory;
I remember the room full of pride
and my blossoming blood when
a parent said I could be a teacher.

Robert Sullivan

Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi Nui Tonu, Kāi Tahu Whānui) is the 14th Aotearoa New Zealand Poet Laureate. Among his sixteen books are the bestselling Star Waka, Weaving Earth and Sky and Hopurangi Songcatcher. He has won awards for his poetry, editing, and writing for children. His year 6 teacher at Onehunga Primary School, Mrs Naire, first inspired him to write poetry, which was a cloud poem about a boy observing an alligator. He lives in Ōamaru on ancestral whenua, the beautiful coasts of Te Tai o Āraiteuru.

The Poet Laureate Postcards is a new and ongoing series where Robert, our current Poet Laureate sends a postcard, whether poem or prose, from his travels or from home, from experience, memory or imagination.

Poetry Shelf celebrates Te Wiki o te Reo Māori -Māori Language Week: ‘View from a Mountain’ by Ben Brown

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View From A Mountain

Replica waka hourua
cruising up the Whakaraupo ki te !anga
by the Naval Point

seems indifferent
to the semi laden bulk carrier
on its way
to Somewhere Else
with the rest of its ammonium sulphate
caking in the holds

Tēnā waka
has auxiliary power
reminds me of the old Rangatira
remembering his boyhood visit aboard
Te waka o Tupaea that we call HMS
Endeavour these days

And how his Rangatira father first
saw iron and asked for nails
to which a tall fair man of
apparent mana said
‘Of course’
or words to that effect
and gave the old fella a bucket full

That old Rangatira father
can’t have heard about Te Maro
or he might have asked for something
more substantial
Anyway

me karanga au ki tēnā waka
I gotta call out to the waka eh

‘You’re too late fellas
by a few hundred years.
But never mind just tie up
at the yacht club
cos the bar is open soon’

Te Ahu Patiki
off the port beam
observes my irreverence
with a silent rebuke
and that’s okay
the maunga may think whatever it likes
and who am I to argue

My son and I
climbed it ages ago
when he was ten years old
and it was more than I could do
to keep up with him

He shot up there like a mountain goat
while I wheezed regret every step
of the way at every single
cigarette I ever bloody
smoked

But up there on
te Tihi o te Maunga
the view as they say
is to die for

Ben Brown
from This Imperfect Light, Dead Bird Books, 2026

Ben Brown (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Korokī, Ngāti Pāoa) is an award-winning children’s author, poet and freelance writer. He has written over twenty children’s books as well as short stories for children and adults, general non-fiction, memoir, freelance articles and reviews. His poetry has been published in various anthologies around the world, and in May 2021 he was made the inaugural Aotearoa Reading Ambassador for Children – Te Awhi Rito. He is also a father of two, which he considers his best work to date.

Poetry Shelf Monday Poem: from ‘The Elements’ by Richard Reeve

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from The Elements

II

Already ahead of ourselves. Knowing what to do.
Look to the distant wave, crunching over reefs
far below in a bay that is open to the ocean.
The foulest of weather sweeps in off the sea;
leaves bow to the rain, branches bend,
bark peeled from tree trunks flaps in gusts.
Knowing what to do (however improbably),
we are always already ahead of ourselves, already involved.
Before there were footprints, storm, the sea.
Look out to that broken water, look into the gale.
Pay attention to rainy flux in its perpetuity.
Build yourself a house. Walls work for a while.

IV

To talk about the town is to talk time itself.
Already ahead of things, knowing exactly what to do,
they established a smelter and container port,
these after the whaling industry had dried up,
after earlier ways had been pushed into the margins
and the forest cut down for pasture.
For all time now, the port resists the waves;
for all shallow time, although that will pass,
the action of wave on breakwater, wind on steel,
destined to prevail in the natural course.
One day too the smelter, a trapped river
crying out across the sandflats, will fall silent.

VIII

Hard to say what will happen to Waituna.
Hard to know the fate of the old trees
in Omaui Reserve, what that forest will be
after the elements have rubbed out our age.
Hard to assess the fate of a water drop
suspended on a tip of flowering flax.
Hard to predict what will happen with the gorse,
whether mānuka mothered by its thorns will thrive
or whether the gorse will choke Waituna.
Hard to say how the town will evolve,
what will replace the decrepit buildings
that in their day were renowned establishments.

XV

A friend involved with the company that built it
picked Flat Hill, which might be a fairly non-descript area
though clearly it was someone else’s land
before the wind farm, before the grand conversion
of contours into platforms on which to seat the towers,
another example of the elements corralled
into servicing the ambitions of the newcomers.
By which I mean the ambit of our species,
the crackle of a moka pot on the small hob here
being likely the wind’s work, a fact of coffee brewing
on the back of the storm breaking over the hill,
the blades of the turbines stirring the dark.

XXVII

The water is not the colour you supposed it to be.
Tea-black clear, the gravel at the bottom
shining like teeth through the penumbra,
water where the eels are, raupō and wire-rush,
water bubbled by expiring peat, swamp tears,
it is not what you and I, trading thirdhand knowledge
about the qualities of the wetland, could know from a distance.
Paddle in a puddle, wetland getting in the shoe,
cold, wind-cold, water-cold, getting between the toes.
Get into that, perfectly still under mānuka
the frigid lagoon, a present haven for the ducks.
Take note of the solace she gifts her visitors.

Richard Reeve

Richard Reeve is the author of seven collections of poetry by various presses. He lives in Warrington, to the north of Dunedin. The Elements was written after a time spent in Bluff in 2023 at the kind invitation of Marcus Lush and Vanessa Underwood. It will be published by Maungatua Press at some stage.