Image: Anna Comrie-Thompson

Entries for the Caselberg Trust International Poetry Competition 2026 are now open!

Now in its 16th year, the competition attracts entries from across Aotearoa New Zealand and from all over the world. This year we are delighted to announce that Ōtepoti Dunedin City of Literature has joined with our long term sponsor the University Book Shop (Otago) to co-sponsor the competition this year.

City of Literature Director Nicky Page says “Ōtepoti City of Literature is proud to join original sponsor University Book Shop (Otago) to support this remarkable International Poetry Prize, pivotal to the ecosystem in Aotearoa and beyond – congratulations Caselberg Trust!”

We’re also delighted to announce that this year’s judge will be Dunedin writer Emma Neale. Emma’s latest book ‘Maybe Baby’ (Bateman Books) has just hit the bookstores this month. A former editor of Landfall, Emma works as a freelance editor for publishers in Aotearoa and Australia. She has had 14 books published. In 2020 she received the Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for a Distinguished Contribution to New Zealand Poetry. Her seventh poetry collection ‘Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit’ (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2024) won the Mary and Peter Biggs Prize for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in 2025. In 2025 she also received the Janet Frame Prize.

The winning poem and judge’s report will appear in Landfall Tauraka 252, and poets keen to enter can find entry details on our website: https://www.caselbergtrust.org/prizes

Caselberg Trust Chairperson Dr Janet Downs says “A big thank you once again to our sponsors – UBS and the Ōtepoti City of Literature, to our judge Emma Neale, Landfall Tauraka, and to all the wonderful poets that entrust us with their poems. We couldn’t do it without you.”

Entries are judged blind. First Prize is $600 (plus one-week stay at the Caselberg house at Broad Bay, Dunedin). Second Prize is $300 and up to 5 Highly Commended awards (no monetary prizes).

The first- and second-placed poems and highly commended entries will appear on the Caselberg Trust website (copyright remaining with the authors) after the publication of Landfall Tauraka 252 in November 2026.

Entries close 5pm Tuesday 30 June.

Thank you to our partners City of Literature Dunedin, New Zealand, University Book Shop Otago, Landfall Tauraka Journal.