The Kathleen Grattan Award is one of New Zealand's top poetry awards. It is named after Kathleen Grattan, an Auckland poet, who died in 1990. The award was first made in 2008.
History
The Kathleen Grattan Award is a prestigious poetry prize for an original collection of poems or a long poem by a New Zealand or Pacific resident or citizen.
It is named after Kathleen Grattan, an Auckland poet, journalist and former editor of the ''
New Zealand Woman's Weekly
The ''New Zealand Woman's Weekly'' is a weekly New Zealand women's magazine published by Are Media. , it had a circulation of 82,040, third by paid sales after ''TV Guide'' and ''New Zealand Woman's Day''.
History
On 8 December 1932, journalist ...
''. Her work was published in ''
Landfall
Landfall is the event of a storm moving over land after being over water. More broadly, and in relation to human travel, it refers to 'the first land that is reached or seen at the end of a journey across the sea or through the air, or the fact ...
'' and elsewhere, including ''Premier Poets'', a collection from the World Poetry Society. She was a member of the Titirangi Poets. Kathleen Grattan died in 1990 and her daughter Jocelyn Grattan, who died in 2005, left ''Landfall'' a bequest with which to establish an award in her mother's name.
She also left another bequest to fund the
Kathleen Grattan Prize for a Sequence of Poems.
The inaugural award was made in 2008 and for some years it was given annually, but is now biennial.
Eligibility and conditions
* This award is given biennially for a collection of poems, or one long poem
* Minimum submission length is 20 pages
* Entrants must be New Zealand or South Pacific permanent residents or citizens.
* Individual poems can have been previously published, but the collection as a whole should be unpublished.
* Entries (in an award year) are accepted until 31 July and the result is announced in the November issue of ''Landfall''
* The winner receives a monetary prize of $10,000 and a year's subscription to ''Landfall''.
List of winners by year
''Unless otherwise stated, all winners were published in the year following their award by
Otago University Press
Otago University Press is an academic publisher associated with the University of Otago. The press is located in Dunedin, New Zealand. The Otago University Press is the oldest academic publisher in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Otago University Press p ...
''
* 2008:
Joanna Preston
Joanna Preston (born 1972) is an Australian poet, editor and creative writing tutor based in New Zealand. She has published two award-winning collections of poetry.
Life and career
Preston was born in Sydney in 1972, and grew up in rural New S ...
(''The Summer King'', which also won the
Mary Gilmore Prize
__NOTOC__
The Mary Gilmore Award is currently an annual Australian literary award for poetry, awarded by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Since being established in 1956 as the ACTU Dame Mary Gilmore Award, it has been awar ...
for best first book of poetry)
* 2009:
Leigh Davis
Leigh Robert Davis (20 June 1955 – 3 October 2009) was a New Zealand writer who created long poems and large-scale, mixed-media projects in which he worked with painters, designers and composers. He was known for the highly experimental natu ...
(posthumously) (''Stunning debut of the Repairing of a Life'')
* 2010:
Jennifer Compton
Jennifer Compton (born 1949) is a New Zealand-born Australian poet and playwright.
Biography
She was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1949 and attended Wellington East Girls' College. In the 1970s she emigrated to Sydney, Australia with her ...
(''This City'')
* 2011:
Emma Neale (''The Truth Garden'')
* 2013:
Siobhan Harvey (''Nephrology for Beginners'', published as ''Cloudboy'')
* 2015:
Michael Harlow
Michael Harlow (born 1937) is a poet, publisher, editor and librettist. A recipient of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship (1986) and the University of Otago Robert Burns Fellowship (2009), he has twice been a poetry finalist in the New Z ...
(''Nothing for it but to Sing'')
* 2017:
Alison Glenny (''The Farewell Tourist'')
*2019: Philip Armstrong (''Sinking Lessons'')
*2021: Michael Steven (''Night School'')
*2023: Jo McNeice (''Blue Hour'')
See also
*
Kathleen Grattan Prize for a Sequence of Poems
*
List of New Zealand literary awards
External links
Kathleen Grattan Poetry Awardon Otago University Press website - with a list of past winners.
References
{{Reflist
New Zealand poetry awards