Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize 2025 – winners announced
The winners of the 2025 Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize have been announced. The competition is now in its fifteenth year, and this year attracted 150 poems from New Zealand, the USA and Germany. This year’s competition was judged by poet Robert Sullivan.
This year’s winner is Helen Williford-Lower from Te Matau-a-Māui (Hawkes Bay) for her poem “Tōku Kōhine o Waikouaiti”. Runner up is Ura TeĀta (Kuki Airani Māori, Mitiaro, Penhryn, Manihiki, Rakahanga, e Atiu, Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato Tainui, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāpuhi hoki, Tahiti, Ra 'iātea, Samoa, Malie) from Waitangirua, Porirua for her poem “Grammar is Right?”.
The winner receives $600 and a week’s stay at the Caselberg House. The runner up poet receives $300. The winning poem and Robert’s judge’s report will be published in October in Landfall 250 – Spring 2025, and subsequently on our Caselberg Trust website along with the runner up and Highly Commended poems.
The judge also recognised two poems with Highly Commended awards - ”The strength of water” by Gail Zing (Ōtautahi Christchurch), and ‘How to pop a bottle with another bottle’ by Jordan Hamel (e Tihi o Maru, Timaru).
In his judge’s report Mr Sullivan noted that “I’m delighted to report that “Tōku Kōhine o Waikouaiti” has won this year’s Caselberg Poetry prize. For those who do not read te reo Māori, this poem in six stanzas is a praise poem celebrating the speaker’s relationship with a young woman from Waikouaiti and her southern ancestry and the continuum of the indigenous frame of reference there.”
He went on further to say that Ms Williford-Lower’s poem “makes many allusions to the local knowledges of the land and its people including spiritual creatures associated with the whenua, its flora and coastline, and its pastoral landscape. It is both a love poem for an unnamed woman, and for that woman’s homeland. This love, the speaker seems to be saying, grows for the land through the young woman’s freely given unconditional love for both the speaker and the land.”
The Caselberg Trust would like to thank the University Bookshop (UBS) for its continued sponsorship of the Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize, and for supporting poetry in Aotearoa New Zealand.