Kathleen Grattan Award for Poetry 2021

Posted: Wednesday Dec 01, 2021

A massive congratulations to Michael Steven who is the winner of the Kathleen Grattan Award for Poetry 2021 for his manuscript 'Night School', which will be published by Otago University Press next April.

Competition judge David Eggleton says: ‘The poems in this collection read and feel as if they have been quarried out of silence and watchfulness and long contemplation of the dark night of the soul ... [Steven] writes like someone fleeing an infernal and damned city, one about to be razed by a vengeful Old Testament God, and yet he bears lyrical and eloquent witness.’
Michael's previous collections include 'The Lifers' and 'Walking to Jutland Street'.
https://www.otago.ac.nz/press/books/authors/index.html...
Shortlisted were Robyn Maree Pickens with ‘Tung’, Rebecca Hawkes with ‘Spittle Glitter’, Nick Ascroft with ‘The Stupefying’, Elizabeth Morton with ‘Naming the Beasts’, and C.K. Stead with ‘Late & Later’.
Photo credit: Amy Tonkin