The winners of the 2026 Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize have been announced. The competition is now in its sixteenth year, and this year attracted 192 poems from New Zealand, Australia, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, UK, USA, and Venezuela. This year’s competition was judged by writer Emma Neale.

The winner receives a cash prize of $600, a one week stay at the Caselberg house in 2027, and their poem published in Landfall Tauraka 252 in November 2026. The two runner up poets receive a cash prize of $300.

Winner:

Linda Collins, Rambling, Oamaru

Runner up:

Margaret Moores, Self-portrait: Still life 1973, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland

Michelle Elvy, Will, Ōtepoti/Dunedin

Highly Commended:

Janet Newman, Farmer Digs, Taitoko/Levin

Jessica Hinerangi Thompson Carr, Sycorax, Ōtepoti/Dunedin

Bee Trudgeon, Score, Porirua

Jodie Dalgleish, Beauty, Whanganui

Commended:

Wes Lee, Persephone and time in the Underworld, Te Whanganui a Tara/Wellington

Kunal Sharma, The attendance of ash, Delhi

Lee Fraser, Fear (Swadesh), Ōtautahi/Christchurch

Susan Wardell , Hare or Fear, Ōtepoti/Dunedin

Sarah Scott, Radiata, Te Whanganui a Tara/Wellington

John Kelk, Tuwhare, Muruhiku/Invercargill

The winning poem and Emma’s judge’s report will be published in November in Landfall Tauraka 252 – Spring 2026, and subsequently on our Caselberg Trust website along with the runner up, Highly Commended, and Commended poems.

In her judge’s report Dr Neale noted that ‘The 192 entries this year sent me off on a long and taxing quest. For extended reading stints, it seemed I was hunting for, say, a lost pounamu ring on a vast beach covered with stones glowing or glowering in every shade of green’.

Of the winning poem Rambling by Linda Collins she said ‘‘Rambling’ has fluent syntax and although dotted with contemporary language, it reveals a traditional notion of the poem. It’s tightly structured in ‘unheroic’ couplets; it’s bucolic in the sense that it celebrates a natural idyll, and the closure has the satisfying elan of a riddle arriving in almost the same instant that it’s resolved’

The Caselberg Trust would like to thank sponsors The University Bookshop (UBS) and Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature for supporting the Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize, and for supporting poetry in Aotearoa New Zealand.

We also thank Landfall Tauraka for their ongoing support.

Contact for further information: Robert West – email: info@caselbergtrust.org

Linda Collins – Winning poet

Originally from West Auckland, Linda Collins now lives in coastal Kākaunui after years in Singapore. A holder of MAs in Creative Writing from IIML and the University of East Anglia, she’s been runner-up in the Mslexia single poem contest, shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, a finalist in the Joy Harjo contest, and Otago regional winner at National Flash Fiction Day. Her debut collection is Sign Language for the Death of Reason (Math Paper Press); journals her poetry has appeared in include Cordite, bath magg, Lighthouse, and Oyster River Pages. On trauma poetics, Collins has an essay about Denise Riley in peer-reviewed Journal of Poetry Therapy; and another on Hamid Roslan in a monograph for the Singapore Literature Conference. The Mekong Review and a fine line have published her poetry reviews; most recently, a personal essay, ‘Galloping at the Estuary’, is in Headland. Her memoir, Loss Adjustment (Awa Press; Ethos Books; Beijing Guangchen) received a special mention at the Singapore Book Awards for ‘bravely breaking the silence on suicide’.

Emma Neale – Judge

Emma Neale, a former editor of Landfall Tauraka, works as a freelance editor for publishers in Aotearoa and Australia. She has had 14 books published. In 2020 she received the Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for a Distinguished Contribution to New Zealand Poetry. Her seventh poetry collection Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2024) won the Mary and Peter Biggs Prize for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in 2025. In 2025 she also received the Janet Frame Prize. Her new novel, Maybe Baby, appeared from Bateman in May 2026.

Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize 2026 – winners announced