Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize 2023

Posted: Monday Oct 09, 2023

Winners Announced!

The winners of the 2023 Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize have been announced. The competition is now in its thirteenth year, and this year attracted 152 poems from across New Zealand and Australia. This year’s competition was judged by poet Rhian Gallagher.

For the first time in the competitions history first place is shared between two poets – Tim Saunders from the Manawatu for his poem “Aloneness”, and Jilly O’Brien from Ōtepoti – Dunedin for her poem “The Tiriti Translator”. “The Time of the Wetlands” by Ōtepoti – Dunedin based Megan Kitching was placed runner up.

The winners receive $500 and a week’s stay at the Caselberg House. The runner up poet receives $250. Winning poems and Rhian’s judges report will be published in November in Landfall 246 – Spring 2023.

The judge also awarded “Still life in an Op shop” by Nicola Easthope (Kāpati Coast) a Highly Commended. This poem, along with the winning entries and the judges report, will be published on the Caselberg Trust website in late November .

In her judges’ report Rhian Gallagher noted that “Judging the Caselberg Trust International Poetry Competition has been a polyphonic experience: there was such a multiplicity of voices and variety of approaches to how a poem might be made. The diversity, and the level of accomplishment, made it a real pleasure to read and engage with the entries.”

and said of Jilly O’Brien’s poem “The Tiriti Translator conjures a historical period with deftness and cinematic clarity: “I knew it was Sunday/for the kirk-going carts/ wore Sunday shirt with collar and tie”. This is a poem that has found its form: a lilting rhythm, apt use of rhyme and Scottish dialect so wonderfully employed.”

Of Tim Saunders poem, Rhian said “Aloneness’ is a quiet, spellbinding poem. It’s a small poem with a big interior and, in that, exemplifies something only poetry can do. It’s a poem of great economy.”

Tim Saunders farms sheep and beef in the Manawatu. He has had poetry and short stories published in Turbine|Kapohau, takahē, Landfall, Poetry NZ Yearbook, Headland, Flash Frontier, Broadsheet, Best Small Fictions, RNZ and he also won the 2018 Mindfood Magazine Short Story Competition. His first book, This Farming Life, was published by Allen & Unwin in August, 2020. His second book, Under a Big Sky, was published in August, 2022.

Jilly O’Brien has had poems published in Landfall, Poetry New Zealand, Mayhem, Takahē, Catalyst, The Spinoff, 1964, as well as overseas in Cordite, Rabbit, Stand, The Blue Nib, Not Very Quiet, as well as in a number of anthologies, on a bench and in Antarctica.

The awards night will be held in November – details to be confirmed

Contacts for further information:

Robert West – email: info@caselbergtrust.org