I’m immensely thankful to the judges, Associate Professor Jill Jones and Dr Toby Fitch, for their openness to experimentation, to strange poetic explorations, and to contemporary experiences from regional Australia. Poetry is a vital part of Australian culture, the fabric of life, the possibilities for political transformation. I hope that poetry can continue to run its fingers over the big and small questions of existence in surprising ways. The Newcastle Poetry Prize (now in its 40th year) is a testament to The University of Newcastle’s ongoing support for poetry and creative arts. Regional Universities are vital for the cultural health of their communities, they trade in global and local ideas, bringing the best of Australia to the world. 40 years of this prize demonstrates the richness of Australia’s poetic practice, and the support of the University of Newcastle has allowed this to continue and thrive.

Having my poem selected for publication in the Newcastle Poetry Prize anthology gave me a feeling of reassurance that I am being seen and heard by my peers. Poetry can sometimes be an undervalued and misunderstood genre - the more people who care about promoting it, the more it blossoms. Hunter Writers Centre and the University of Newcastle are doing an amazing job at giving poetry in Australia the spotlight it deserves.

The Newcastle Poetry Prize provides invaluable support for poetry, especially for those of us who want to write long form poetry. It is difficult to find venues to publish longer works, so the focus on the longer poem makes this prize quite distinctive. An additional value is the publication of the 30 long listed poems in the annual anthology. The whole process, from submission to to judging to publication in the anthology, has been utterly professional. I would like to thank the University and the HWC for their ongoing work and contribution to prize and to contemporary Australian poetry.

It has been my pleasure and privilege to be involved with the Newcastle Poetry Prize over the years in different ways, as a judge, as a sometimes prize winner and as a poet within the pages of various anthologies. The first time I was published as a result of the competition was in 1995. I will never forget the joy and awe I felt finding my little poem surrounded by the poems of Australia’s finest poets. That feeling of wonder and gratitude has not left me, and I am thrilled at winning a prize in this important competition in 2016 and being represented in the current anthology.

Significant prizes such as the NPP, with its long history, are of critical value, less for the money they offer than for the way they bring poetry to public attention, and as a filter of quality. The fact that this competition can attract judges of the stature of those for this year´s prize indicates that the Newcastle is one of the nation´s most important, and that the University of Newcastle is a leader in maintaining its support for it.

The Newcastle Poetry Prize, co-ordinated by Hunter Writers Centre, is the jewel every poet would love to claim.

It is my impression that the Newcastle Poetry Prize is still widely regarded as the most important poetry prize in Australia. I certainly think of it in this way.

This prize is a tribute to effort, to energy, to focus, to skill and sticking with the craft. Try - just try - to imagine the hours of training and work that have gone into creating the poems that could be and that are in the collection, the training and work, the energy, that goes into selecting them. Imagine what we would have to pay for it, as a nation, if it were remunerated the way sitting on a board of directors is in this country. Imagine what it would cost if we paid for it the way we pay teachers or nurses or tradies. (Bless 'em all, the long and the short, etc.) With those who frequent this prize and poetry in Australia more generally, we are talking here about life commitment - sheer cussedness in a way - against the background noise and disinterest Australia provides for its poets. Thanks to the HWC and the university for continuing to make this happen. This prize for a long poem is an incredibly important to the cultural life of Australia's unacknowledged legislators. It is an opportunity for extended meditation by that trusty band who foolishly give their lives for poetry in a country where so few give a damn about the cutting edge of what we all do with words.

The crucial thing about the Newcastle is the encouragement it gives to the writing of long poems. To my knowledge it is the only poetry prize in Australia that allows for the submission of unpublished poems longer than 100 lines. The 200 line limit allows a poet to stretch out, to explore at length the possibilities of a narrative or meditative sequence, a dramatic monologue (or dialogue for that matter) or any other exploratory poetic mode. The publication of the prize anthology offers a rare opportunity for high quality longer form poems to be published, and the recognition of the winning poems by the granting of significant monetary prizes does a lot to reinforce the professional status of poetry as an art form capable of producing sustained original work.

I am wholly grateful to the university of Newcastle for this award. It's emboldening, both for the self-confidence it brings, and the structure it provides for poetry and poetic language. My practice, and why I write poetry more broadly, centres on the porousness of language, the way metaphor extends/seeps into it, creating pools at the root, a reservoir. Nothing like poetry can mediate between the past of a language, with all its horror, and what it could be. It's a view of language that defies every market impulse. That is why ongoing support for it is key, and the university of Newcastle's support is invaluable.