THE BLAKE POETRY PRIZE


ENTRIES ARE NOW CLOSED


ABOUT THE PRIZE


The Blake Poetry Prize challenges Australian poets to explore the spiritual and religious in a new work of 100 lines or less.

From 2017 Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in partnership with WestWords has delivered The Blake Poetry Prize as a biennial event. It continues to engage contemporary poets, both national and international, in conversations concerning faith, spirituality, religion and/or belief. It runs alongside the Blake Art Prize and the major prize is $5000.

The Blake Poetry Prize is an aesthetic means of exploring the wider experience of spirituality with the visionary imagining of contemporary poets. The Blake Prize takes its name from William Blake, a poet and artist of undoubted genius, who integrated religious and artistic content in his work. The Blake Poetry Prize challenges contemporary poets of disparate styles to explore the spiritual and religious in a new work of 100 lines or less.

The Blake Poetry Prize is strictly non-sectarian. The entries are not restricted to works related to any faith or any artistic style, but all poems entered must have a recognisable religious or spiritual integrity and demonstrate high degrees of artistic and conceptual proficiency.

The Poetry Blake Prize
$5,000
Non-Acquisitive

The Blake Prize is an open poetry prize that challenges artists to engage in conversations relating to religion and spirituality. It is open to all faiths and artistic styles.

For more details and to enter visit 68th Blake Poetry Prize - Westwords

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Please note each entry requires a separate payment. Eligible entries require both a completed entry form and payment of $30 entry fee.


KEY DATES

Entries open: 2024 - Friday 11 August 2023, 9am
Entries close: 2024 - Friday 18 December 2023, 9am

Shortlist announcement: 22 March 2024

Launch & Winners Announcement: 18 May 2024
The Blake Art Prize Exhibition dates:11 May - 7 July 2024

Join our mailing list for more updates here.

Previous Winners

The winner of the 67th Blake Poetry Prize was Simone King, for her poem Surfing Again.

Simone King is a poet, writer and editor who lives on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm/Melbourne. Her poems and reviews can be found in Rabbit, Cordite, Plumwood Mountain, Right Now and several print poetry anthologies. Simone won first prize in the 2021 Woorilla Poetry Prize (Judith Rodriguez open section) and received prizes for her poems in the 2018 Australian Grieve Writing Competition, the 2019 June Shenfield Poetry Award (highly commended) and the 2020 Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize (commended). Simone co-edited What we Carry: Poetry on Childbearing, Recent Work Press, 2021.

Judges’ Comments:

This is a graceful and moving account of coming to terms with loss. The language is economical, elegant and authentic. It does not shelter behind the opacities of abstract or elevated language, but rather conveys bravely, and with great vulnerability, the lived truth of loss and of honouring the dead.

Creating life within its language this poem is a wonderful deep breath. I wonder if Marquez’s love may be a reminiscence of returning from his journeys into loneliness and the loss of a loved one.

This prose poem successfully and indelibly creates a moving story of travel, loss and homage to friendship using language that avoids sentimentality yet embraces raw emotion. A fine example of how restraint can be luminous and lasting.

Read here: Surfing Again

Watch here:


Watch James Roy, program manager for WestWords, in conversation with Simone King (winner), Kirsten Krauth and Gershon Maller, 67th Blake Prize shortlisted poets. They discuss what spirituality and belief means to them and the importance of storytelling.

About the Blake Poetry Prize

Since 2016 Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (CPAC) has conducted The Blake Poetry Prize as a bi-annual event, ensuring the future of this landmark prize. The Blake Poetry Prize is presented in partnership with WestWords. For enquiries and further information visit westwords.com.au

WestWords and Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre will maintain the guiding principles of The Blake Poetry Prize in continuing to engage contemporary poets, both national and international, in conversations concerning faith, spirituality, religion, hope, humanity, social justice, belief and non-belief. The Blake Poetry Prize is an aesthetic means of exploring the wider experience of spirituality with the visionary imagining of contemporary poets.

The Blake Prize takes its name from William Blake, a poet and artist who integrated religious and artistic content in his work. The Blake Poetry Prize challenges contemporary poets of disparate styles to explore the spiritual and religious in a new work of 100 lines or less. The Blake Poetry Prize is strictly non-sectarian. The entries are not restricted to works related to any faith or any artistic style, but all poems entered must have a recognisable religious or spiritual integrity.