So delighted to see this news. Congratulations Emma Neale!

Emma Neale is the author of six novels and six collections of poetry. Her most recent novel, Billy Bird (2016) was short-listed for the Acorn Prize at the Ockham NZ Book Awards and long-listed for the Dublin International Literary Award. Her new book of poems is To the Occupant which was published in 2019 by Otago University Press. Emma is currently editor of the iconic Aotearoa literary journal, Landfall.

On receiving the award, Emma says: “I’m incredulous, happy and stunned in my tracks, as if someone has thrown a surprise party – the way friends did when I was nine, and they waited to jump out at me until I was standing near the host’s swimming pool. All the other nine-year-olds were hoping I’d fall into the water with shock. I didn’t. So here I am, dry, a bit disoriented and also delighted again, and remembering that Lauris Edmond was the first poet I ever heard give a public reading. When I was 16, I caught the bus alone to a Book Council lunchtime lecture during school holidays in Wellington, and went to hear her talk about her writing career. I have a feeling I’d sneaked out of the house to do it – as if my interest in poetry and my aspirations to write it were somehow going to get me into trouble, and my parents and friends shouldn’t know. I sat and listened on the edge of my seat, as the poems and the talk opened a portal that meant I could glimpse the green and shifting light of hidden things. The portal was still a long way off, but I was convinced that poetry and literature were going to carry me into an understanding of intimacy, identity, time, ethics, deeper metaphysical questions.

I still think of Lauris Edmond as a kind of poet laureate of family relationships; her work was immensely important to me as the work of a local woman poet I could not only read on the page but also hear in person. I am just sorry that I can’t thank her face to face for what her work has meant to me, and I’m enormously grateful to the Friends for reading my own poetry and giving me this generous award. I’ve pinched myself sore. I actually feel like leaping into a pool.”

Established in 2002, the Award is named after New Zealand writer Lauris Edmond who published many volumes of poetry, a novel, a number of plays and an autobiography. Her Selected Poems (1984) won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize.

The 2020 award was announced on 2 April the date of Lauris Edmond’s birthday. A ceremony and birthday celebration was due to take place at National Library of New Zealand in Wellington on 3 April to honour Emma, however due to COVID-19 the event is postponed and will take place in collaboration with Verb Wellington later in the year.

Full release here with two new poems by Emma

Full review here

Read full review here

Not Very Quiet accepts poems from women poets in NZ and Australia. Here is a link to the latest issue which features a couple of well known Kiwi poets and emerging poets such as Sophia Wilson.

From Robyn Maree Pickens:

I was in Finland for a writing residency over January and February and stayed on in the Northern Hemisphere for the launch of the University of Leeds Brotherton Poetry Prize Anthology (published by Carcanet), which was meant to take place on the 23rd March at the University of Leeds Poetry Centre — and to be launched by UK poet laureate Simon Armitage (who was one of the competition judges). Understandably the launch was postponed, but only nine days beforehand. The new, tentative launch date is in the (UK) autumn, but it is unlikely that I will be able to attend this event (or who knows what the world will be like in a few weeks let alone a few months…). I had a very stressful but lucky return to NZ on 21st March and am now in self-isolation at an unfamiliar location, but that is another story…!

Five anthologised finalists in alphabetical order: Pete Green, Maeve Henry, Dane Holt (winner), Majella Kelly, Robyn Maree Pickens.

Judges: Simon Armitage, Malika Booker, Melvyn Bragg, Stella Butler, Vahni Capildeo and John Whale.

I have eight poems in the anthology.

This is an excerpt from Simon Armitage’s introduction:

“Robyn Maree Pickens writes a flexing and flowing poetry, unpredictable and daring at times, one that can shape-shift from a bold and abrupt comparison (‘a sea-urchin that looks like a vagina’) or a reference to Grindr, to something far more elusive and elliptical, as in the opening lines of The time has come for you to lip sync where she observes:

Here you are – pulling another foal out of the Ice Age
as the moon files its tongue down to a shimmer.

The poems are mesmerising and memorable, trippy but never blurred or vague.” (p x

The award ceremony was on the 10th of June 2019 at the University of Leeds Poetry Centre with all of the judges and poets in attendance (I happened to be in Dublin for a conference last year just beforehand so was able to attend the event).

In the attached photo (from the award ceremony) I am fourth from the left.

Here is some general information about the prize prior to the announcement of the winners:

The Brotherton Poetry Prize is open to anyone in the world over the age of 18 who hasn’t yet published a full collection of poems (a chapbook or pamphlet does not count as a full collection). Entries to the competition should include no more than 200 lines of poetry in up to five individual poems.

The winner will receive £1,000 and the opportunity to develop their creative practice with the University of Leeds Poetry Centre.

Four runners-up will each receive £200.

The poems of the five shortlisted poets will be published as an anthology by Carcanet Press. All entrants who provide a UK postal address will receive a copy of the anthology on publication. The shortlisted poets will be invited to take part in a series of readings and events held at the University of Leeds and in other venues in Yorkshire.

All shortlisted poets will receive travel expenses up to £150 to cover expenses associated with the competition announcement. Expenses for UK-based poets associated with events may be reimbursed.

The Brotherton Poetry Prize is generously supported by the Charles Brotherton Trust.

https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/2000/brotherton_prize?fbclid=IwAR26CjhgJHKbPJE83lACTBafU8pDzrONyPOjTUH_4ra1VUBw5MNDiucu1WM

Here is the announcement about the competition winners:

Selected from almost 400 entries, the winner of the Brotherton Poetry Prize was announced at an event last night, after all five shortlisted poets read one of their five submitted poems.

Mr Holt, 26, originally from Chesterfield in Derbyshire, said he was looking forward to working with Leeds’ Professor of Poetry.

“Simon Armitage was the first poet I ever read,” he added.

The prize, launched last year, aims to nurture previously unpublished poets. The runners-up were Sheffield-based Pete Green; Maeve Henry, from Oxford; Majella Kelly from Tuam in Ireland; and Robyn Maree Pickens, from Dunedin in New Zealand.

The choice was unanimous among the judges – writer and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg; poets and Douglas Caster Cultural Fellows Vahni Capildeo and Malika Booker; University Librarian Dr Stella Butler; University of Leeds Poetry Centre Director Professor John Whale, and Professor Armitage.

All of the finalists and judges were present to see the winner named.

Listen here

Includes two New Zealanders – see here