Caselberg International Poetry Prize - 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 has been published in Landfall 250 – Spring 2025, and is available for download here 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.

 

Contact for further information:

Robert West – email: info@caselbergtrust.org

Winning Poet - Helen Williford-Lower

Helen Williford-Lower is an award-winning poet whose work blends lyrical precision with a love of world culture and legend. Born in Washington, D.C., she grew up in Germany, London and Texas, where she wrote her first poem at age six. She earned an Honours Liberal Arts degree from the University of Texas, immersing herself in world literature - especially Baudelaire, the French Symbolists and the Pre-Raphaelites.

Her career has taken her from the Los Angeles slam poetry scene—where she recorded sound design poems at A&M Records and worked in PR for Ram Dass and noted Swiss scientist Dr. Albert Hoffman— to the quiet rural South Island of New Zealand.  There she and her husband tended 10 sheep and she began producing poetry collections, including Chimera and Chimère (édition française).
Along the way she won the NZ Burns Society Poetry Prize with her Scots inflected “To Wee Russet Tuft” and served as a judge the next year.  She recorded Laurence Hope’s India’s Love Lyrics receiving a “Staff Picks” nod from Libravox.  Her blog “Laurence Hope Notes” stands as a unique study of Hope’s poetic activism, proto-feminism, and her likely early romantic link with Rudyard Kipling.

Her latest book, Fairy Lights: Bed Time Poems and Gallery of Fairytale Art from Yesteryear, is a large-format “NO AI” hardcover treat for children and the young at heart.  It pairs 22 fables and tales in verse with vintage art from the Golden Age of Illustration, and draws on Celtic, Nordic and Greek traditions.  Publisher’s Weekly has weighed in with a positive review, and an audio version is to follow.  From The Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize in Dunedin – a UNESCO City of Literature - she has just been awarded first place for a poem written in te reo Māori.

Helen lives in Flaxmere, Hawke’s Bay, enjoying raising fruit trees and crafting poems that reach through the boundaries of language, folklore, and hidden realms.

Runner Up Poet - Ura TeĀta

Tena koutou katoa, Kia orana, Ia orana, Talofa lava, Hal`o, Warm greetings.

Kuki Airani Māori, Mitiaro, Penhryn, Manihiki, Rakahanga, e Atiu, Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato Tainui, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāpuhi hoki, Tahiti, Ra 'iātea, Samoa, Malie.

I was born in Aotearoa New Zealand and lived in Parihaka for the first five years of my life.  I have also lived in the Cook Islands, South East Asia and Australia.  I attended primary and secondary school in Porirua.  I live in Porirua with Ngati Toa Rangatira as mana whenua.

I was brought up in a Māori speaking home with an extended multilingual and multicultural whānau.  I was discouraged from speaking Maori at primary school and so were my parents, and grandparents although they were all fluent speakers.  My passion is revitalising Te Reo Māori, Reo Māori Kuki Airani, Reo Mā’ ohi and Gagana Sāmoa within my whānau.

Writing for me is like water I can’t live without it.  Alongside my unpublished creative writing I have had a poem published in capital times newspaper.  I have also written and published for diverse government and community settings.  In 2024 I was the recipient of the New Zealand Society of Authors first Te Kaituhi Māori Kupu Kaitiaki Mentorship.  I was mentored by the incredible Vaughn Rapatahana.  I am a mama and grandmother.  I write for my mokopuna, the generations yet to come, and myself wearing my bright orange nail polish.

Judge - Robert Sullivan

Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu, Irish) is the author and editor of fifteen books—mainly poetry, as well as a graphic novel Maui Legends of the Outcast illustrated by Chris Slane and Weaving Earth and Sky, a New Zealand Post Children's Book of the Year, which was illustrated by Gavin Bishop. He co-edited, with Albert Wendt and Reina Whaitiri, the anthologies of Polynesian poetry in English, Whetu Moana and Mauri Ola, and an anthology of Māori poetry with Reina Whaitiri, Puna Wai Kōrero. He coedited with Janet Newman Koe: An Aotearoa ecopoetry anthology (Otago University Press, 2024). He co-edits The Journal of New Zealand Literature with Dr Erin Mercer, is President of the NZ Poetry Society, and has served on many literature advisory and judging panels. His most recent book is Hopurangi / Songcatcher published by AUP in 2024 which is shortlisted for the Ockham NZ Book Awards 2025 Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry. His most recent work is published in Landfall 248, and forthcoming in issue 7 of Peripheries (Harvard University Press) guest-edited by Jessica Wilkinson.

Robert is the current New Zealand Poet Laureate.