Caselberg Trust Poetry Prize – Second-time Winner

The winners have been announced for the 2013 Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize, which was judged this year by Wellington poet, painter and curator Gregory O’Brien.

For the second year in succession, First Prize has been won by Palmerston North writer Tim Upperton. His winning entry, ‘Everything is possible’, was praised by the judge for having a ‘lightly handled rhyme scheme and a cruisy tone and rhythm’.

The Judge awarded Second Prize to Laurice Gilbert, of Wellington, for her ‘droll and endearing’ poem ‘Ten Things I Want To Tell You About My Ducks’.

The prize-winners will receive $500 and $250 respectively, and their poems will appear in Landfall 225, published in May by Otago University Press.

The five Highly Commended entries were: ‘Reading Moby Dick the week of Peter Bethune’s trial’, by Janet Newman (Levin); ‘Karl’s Double Yo-Yo’, by Caroline Lark (Dunedin); ‘Cloud analysis’, by Sandi Sartorelli (Upper Hutt); ‘If Wellington Harbour is a laundry’, by Nicola Easthope (Raumati South); and ‘Cranium’, by Natasha Dennerstein (Wellington).

The third annual Caselberg Trust competition, for which entries were as usual judged blind, attracted entries from around New Zealand as well as from Australia and farther afield.

The Caselberg Trust has for seven years operated a residence for writers and artists at Broad Bay on the Otago Peninsula. Its ‘Creative Connections’ Residency for 2013 will be the Auckland-based musicians Pacific Underground, founded in 1993 by Tanya Muagututi’a and Posenai Mavaega.