Poetry Shelf warmly congratulates the four finalists

The finalists in the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry are poet and academic Anna Jackson for Terrier, Worrier: A Poem in Five Parts; poet and critic Erik Kennedy for Sick Power Trip; and debut poets Sophie van Waardenberg for No Good and Nafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa‘itea, Faleālupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu) for Black Sugarcane.

Black Sugarcane byNafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa‘itea, Faleālupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu) (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
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No Good by Sophie van Waardenberg (Auckland University Press)
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Sick Power Trip by Erik Kennedy (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
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Terrier, Worrier: A Poem in Five Parts byAnna Jackson (Auckland University Press)
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JUDGES for theMary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry: poet, musician and multi-disciplinary artist Daren Kamali (convenor); poet, writer, performer and editor Jordan Hamel; and writer, musician and translator Claudia Jardine.

“As judges we were filled with imagination and excitement, and we were also torn by the reasoning, culture, storytelling and language of the high-quality poetry collections in this year’s submissions,” says category convenor of judges Daren Kamali. “We salute the four finalists, from the island realness of Black Sugarcane and the love, loss and distance in No Good, to long COVID in Sick Power Trip and the shape and form of Terrier, Worrier.”