Winner of the Scanlon Prize 2008 for a book of Indigenous poetry was Yvette Holt for her collection 'Anonymous Premonition (UQP)

Joint winners: of The Poets Union Poetry Prize 2008 were:
Anna Buck 'In the clearing' and
Tricia Dearborn 'The Ringing World’

poet,Yvette Holt

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2010 entry details for the Scanlon Prize and Poets Union Poetry Prize are up on the website now. Please look under Competitions and Prizes for details.

Both prizes will be announced at the Poets Union '2010 Australian Poetry Festival' 3-5 September being run this year in collaboration with the Australian Poetry Centre.

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Winner of the Scanlon Prize 2008 for a book of Indigenous poetry was Yvette Holt’s Anonymous Premonition (UQP)

Yvette Holt’s voice is compelling, loud and proud and her first collection gives the low-down on what it is to be an Indigenous woman today.

Yvette Holt is a descendant of the Bidjara Nation, Queensland. She lives in Brisbane, where she was born.
Yvette graduated from the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), where she received the UTS Human Rights Award in the category of Reconciliation.
Yvette is currently researching Indigenous Australian literature and lecturing in Aboriginal Women’s Studies at the University of Queensland.
Anonymous Premonition won the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards (2008) Indigenous Writing Prize.

The Scanlon Prize for Poetry aims to encourage Indigenous writers in Australia and thereby to make their art more widely known. The Scanlon Foundation’s principal areas of interest are cultural diversity and social cohesion.

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The Poets Union Poetry Prize is a biennial award presented at the Australian Poetry Festival.

The Poets Union Poetry Prize is open to all. The entry fee is $10 for members (per entry) and $15 for non-members.

Joint winners: of The Poets Union Poetry Prize 2008 were:
Anna Buck 'In the clearing' and
Tricia Dearborn 'The Ringing World’

Commended poems:
Meg Mooney 'Birdwatching during the intervention'
Mark O'Flynn 'Leeches'
Judy Johnson 'Lhasa' and
Gabrielle Fuller 'Searching for Seamus Heaney’

From the Judges’ Report on The Poets Union Poetry Prize 2008:
"More than 500 poems were submitted this year. The poetic quality of the works submitted was generally high. A very wide range of topics, as well as poetic styles, was represented."

In making their final selections of short-listed and winning poems, the judges gave special consideration to originality in both choice and presentation of subject matter, poems that went beyond the merely descriptive, poems of sustained high quality.

Seven poems were selected for short-listing and after considerable rereading and discussion the judges decided to share the first prize between two of them. "Both are highly original and technically accomplished poems but that is where the similarity ends."

Ron Pretty and Elizabeth Webby
Judges