Warm Congratulations to:
We’re delighted to announce the winners of the 2024 Laurel Prize. This year’s prize was judged by Chair Mona Arshi, Caroline Bird, and Kwame Dawes
First Prize: John Burnside, Ruin Blossom(Jonathan Cape)Second Prize: Hannah Copley Lapwing (Pavilion Poetry)
Third Prize: Robyn Maree Pickens, Tung (Otago University Press)
Best First Collection UK: Charlotte Shevchenko Knight, Food for the Dead (Jonathan Cape)
Best International First Collection: Megan Kitching, At the Point of Seeing (Otago University Press.
Poetry Shelf review of Tung
throwing a shimmer of tongue / this moment now / this pinch / this short gasp / this no escape / this not empty / this sky-wheat / this red earth / this sped through / this gnawing / this harvest / this dissolving shell of sky / this ocean / this not mine
Robyn Maree Pickens, from ‘Pinch’, in Tung
Poetry Shelf review of At the Point of Seeing
In that wavering horizon,
where the merest snap loomed
I found a dull, sedate beauty,
an abundance of swans.
Yes, despite the red fire flush
tipping the succulent wort
and a stilt’s elegant flight
the marsh was flat, almost poetry.
Megan Kitching, from ‘The Inlet’s Shore’ from At the Point of Seeing
NZ Poetry Shelf 