The 68th Blake Poetry Prize

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

From 2017, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, in collaboration with WestWords, has delivered The Blake Poetry Prize as a biennial event.

The Blake Prize is an open poetry prize that challenges poets, both national and international, in conversations concerning faith, spirituality, religion and/or 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 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.

Entries are now closed, and are currently being assessed by the judges. Check back in on March 22nd 2024 as the shortlist is announced.

 

The Blake Poetry Prize | $5,000 | Non-Acquisitive

Key dates

Entries open: 11 August 2023
Entries close: 18 December 2023
Shortlist announcement: 22 March 2024
Launch & Winners Announcement: 18 May 2024

Entry fee: $30

If you have any questions please email us: admin@westwords.com.au 

 

This year’s Judges

Simone King

Simone King (she/her) is a poet, editor and policy adviser living on Wurundjeri country, Naarm/Melbourne. Her poems and reviews have been published in Best of Australian Poems 2022, Rabbit, Cordite, Plumwood Mountain, Mascara Literary Review and a number of print anthologies. Simone has won several poetry prizes including the 2022 Blake Poetry Prize and the 2021 Woorilla Poetry Prize. She coedited What we Carry: Poetry on Childbearing, Recent Work Press, 2021. Simone has spoken on panels and performed her poetry at Sydney Writers’ Festival and Queensland Poetry Festival. 

Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven is a writer of Mununjali and Dutch hertitage. Ellen’s books include Heat and Light (UQP, 2014), Comfort Food (UQP, 2016), Throat (UQP, 2020) and Personal Score (UQP, 2023). 

 

Peter Ramm

Peter Ramm is a poet and teacher who writes on the Gundungarra lands of the NSW Southern Highlands. His recent collection Waterlines (2022) was published by Vagabond Press. In the same year, he won the Manchester Poetry Prize. His poems have also won the Harri Jones Memorial Award, The South Coast Writers Centre Poetry Award, The Red Room Poetry Object, and have been shortlisted in the Bridport, ACU, Blake, Newcastle, Peter Porter, Tom Collins, and KSP National Poetry Prizes. Peter has been widely published in Australian academic and literary journals, and has been awarded residencies with Varuna, WestWords, and the South Coast Writer’s Centre.

  To listen to the full shortlisted poems from the 2022 competition, read by the poets, click here

To listen to the full shortlisted poems from the 2020 competition, read by the poets, click here

 

Terms and Conditions

  • The following persons, and their immediate family members, are ineligible to enter:
    • Competition judges;
    • Current Liverpool City Councillors and current Liverpool City Council employees (including casuals); and
    • Directors and staff of WestWords.
  • All entries must demonstrate recognisable engagement with the themes of:
    • Spirituality;
    • Religion; and/or
    • Belief.
  • All entries must have been created no earlier than two years before 11 August 2023 (entry open date).
  • Entry Forms must be completed and submitted by 5:00pm on 18 December 2023 (entry closure date).
  • Late or incomplete entry forms will not be accepted.
  • An entry is deemed to be incomplete and ineligible if the entry fee has not been paid.
  • Eligible entries must:
    • have only one author;
    • not be currently longlisted for any other literary prize;
    • be between one and a hundred lines in length (not including the title but including footnotes and subheadings);
    • be in either PDF or Word format; and
    • not include any identifying information (including the name, pseudonym, nor contact details of the author).
  • Entrants may enter a maximum of five poems.
  • The author warrants that the submitted poem is original and does not infringe on the copyright, moral rights, or other rights of any other person.
  • Casula Powerhouse Art Centre (CPAC) and WestWords reserve the right to request a Statutory Declaration from any author regarding the works originality, its production within the specified timeframe and/or that it does not in any way infringe upon the rights of any other person as detailed above.
  • Entries may have been published elsewhere, including in a literary journal, online, or in a self-published book or collection.
  • If an entry to the Prize becomes longlisted for a prize elsewhere, the entrant must notify WestWords in writing (admin@westwords.com.au) that entry has been longlisted for another prize. Following, the entrant will have twenty-four (24) hours to decide whether they will:
    • Withdraw their entry from the Prize by notifying WestWords in writing; or
    • Withdraw their entry from the other prize.
  • In the event that the entrant fails to notify WestWords, or that the entry is longlisted in another prize and is not withdrawn within 24 hours, the entry will be disqualified for consideration for the Prize.
  • Eligible entries using or referring to Aboriginal content and/or entries from writers of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent or who identify as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander must be in accordance with the Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their heritage (ICIPR) guidelines and to the Aboriginal protocols of the region where they have been produced https://www.artslaw.com.au/information-sheet/indigenous-cultural-intellectual-property-icip-aitb/
  • By submitting an entry into the Prize, the entrant grants permission for WestWords and/or CPAC and/or Liverpool City Council to print and display the entries all shortlisted entries, in full or in part, online or as part of the Blake Prize Exhibition.

For more Terms and Conditions, click here.

 

The Blake Poetry Prize is presented in partnership with