The Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry, formerly known as the C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has an enumeration of A$25,000. The winner of this category prize vies with 4 other category winners for overall Victorian Prize for Literature valued at an additional A$100,000.
The prize was formerly known as the C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry from inception until 2010, when the awards were re-established under the stewardship of the Wheeler Centre and restarted with new prize amounts and a new name. It was named after the early twentieth century vernacular poet C. J. Dennis.
Year | Author | Title | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2011 | Cate Kennedy | The Taste of River Water | Winner | [1] |
Libby Hart | This Floating World | Finalist | [1] | |
Claire Potter | Swallow | Finalist | [1] | |
2012 | John Kinsella | Armour | Winner | [2] [3] |
Michelle Cahill | Vishvarupa | Finalist | [2] [4] | |
John Mateer | Southern Barbarians | Finalist | [2] [4] | |
2013 | Not awarded | [5] | ||
2014 [a] | Jennifer Maiden | Liquid Nitrogen | Winner | [6] [7] |
Michael Brennan | Autoethnographic | Finalist | [6] [8] | |
Brendan Ryan | Travelling Through the Family | Finalist | [6] [8] | |
2015 | Jill Jones | The Beautiful Anxiety | Winner | [9] [10] |
Andy Kissane | Radiance | Finalist | [9] [11] [12] | |
Susan Bradley Smith | Bed For All Who Come | Finalist | [9] [11] [12] | |
2016 | Alan Loney | Crankhandle | Winner | [13] [14] |
Lucy Dougan | The Guardians | Finalist | [15] | |
Peter Rose | The Subject of Feeling | Finalist | [15] | |
2017 | Maxine Beneba Clarke | Carrying the World | Winner | [16] [17] |
Eileen Chong | Painting Red Orchids | Finalist | [16] [18] | |
Tina Giannoukos | Bull Days | Finalist | [16] [18] | |
2018 | Bella Li | Argosy | Winner | [19] [20] |
Jennifer Maiden | The Metronome | Finalist | [19] [21] | |
Eddie Paterson | redactor | Finalist | [19] [21] | |
2019 | Kate Lilley | Tilt | Winner | [22] [23] |
Eunice Andrada | Flood Damages | Finalist | [24] [25] | |
Rae White | Milk Teeth | Finalist | [24] [25] | |
2020 | Charmaine Papertalk Green | Nganajungu Yagu | Winner | [26] [27] |
Louise Crisp | Yuiquimbiang | Finalist | [28] | |
L. K. Holt | Birth Plan | Finalist | [28] | |
2021 | David Stavanger | Case Notes | Winner | [29] [30] [31] |
Rebecca Jessen | Ask Me About the Future | Finalist | [32] [33] | |
Ellen van Neerven | Throat | Finalist | [32] [33] | |
2022 | Maria Takolander | Trigger Warning | Winner | [34] [35] [36] |
Maxine Beneba Clarke | How Decent Folk Behave | Finalist | [37] | |
Andy Jackson | Human Looking | Finalist | [37] | |
2023 | Gavin Yuan Gao | At the Altar of Touch | Winner | [38] [39] [40] |
Scott-Patrick Mitchell | Clean | Finalist | [38] [41] | |
Simon Tedeschi | Fugitive | Finalist | [38] [41] | |
2024 | Grace Yee | Chinese Fish | Winner | [42] [43] [44] |
Susie Anderson | the body country | Finalist | [43] | |
Claire Miranda Roberts | Kangaroo Paw | Finalist | [43] | |
2025 | Jeanine Leane | Gawimarra: Gathering | Winner | [45] [46] |
Jake Goetz | Holocene Pointbreaks | Finalist | [47] | |
Hasib Hourani | rock flight | Finalist | [47] | |
This award is no longer active. It was renamed in 2011 to Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry (see above).
Year | Author | Title | Ref. | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
1985 | Rosemary Dobson | The Three Fates | Winner | [48] |
Kevin Hart | Your Shadow | Winner | [48] | |
1986 | Rhyll McMaster | Washing the Money | Winner | [49] |
John A. Scott | St. Clair | Winner | [49] | |
1987 | Lily Brett | The Auschwitz Poems | Winner | [50] |
1988 | Judith Beveridge | The Domesticity of Giraffes | Winner | [51] |
1989 | Gwen Harwood | Bone Scan | Winner | [52] |
1990 | Robert Adamson | The Clean Dark | Winner | [53] |
1991 | Jennifer Maiden | The Winter Baby | Winner | [54] |
1992 | Robert Harris | Jane, Interlinear and Other Poems | Winner | [55] |
1993 | Les Murray | Translations from the Natural World | Winner | [56] |
1994 | Robert Gray | Certain Things | Winner | [57] |
1995 | Bruce Beaver | Anima and Other Poems | Winner | [58] |
1996 | Peter Bakowski | In the Human Night | Winner | [59] |
1997 | Les Murray | Subhuman Redneck Poems | Winner | [60] |
1998 | Coral Hull | Broken Land | Winner | [61] |
1999 | Gig Ryan | Pure and Applied | Winner | [62] |
2000 | John Millett | Iceman | Winner | [63] |
2001 | John Mateer | Barefoot Speech | Winner | [64] |
2002 | Robert Gray | Afterimages......syp | Winner | [65] |
2003 | Emma Lew | Anything the Landlord Touches | Winner | [66] |
Jordie Albiston | The Fall | Finalist | ||
S. K. Kelen | Goddess of Mercy | Finalist | ||
2004 | Judith Beveridge | Wolf Notes | Winner | [67] |
Michael Brennan | The Imageless World | Finalist | ||
Anthony Lawrence | The Sleep of a Learning Man | Finalist | ||
2005 | M. T. C. Cronin | <More Or Less Than>1-100 | Winner | [68] |
John Kinsella | Doppler Effect | Finalist | ||
Morgan Yasbincek | Firelick | Finalist | ||
2006 | John Tranter | Urban Myths: 210 Poems | Winner | [69] |
B. R. Dionysius | Universal Andalusia | Finalist | ||
Susan Hampton | The Kindly Ones | Finalist | ||
2007 | Judy Johnson | Jack | Winner | [70] |
Robert Adamson | The Goldfinches of Babylon | Finalist | [71] | |
John Watson | Montale: A Biographical Anthology | Finalist | [71] | |
2008 | Lisa Gorton | Press Release | Winner | [72] |
Judith Bishop | Event | Finalist | [73] | |
Barry Hill | As We Draw Ourselves | Finalist | [73] | |
2009 | Robert Adamson | The Golden Bird | Winner | [74] |
Carol Jenkins | Fishing in the Devonian | Finalist | [75] | |
Bronwyn Lea | The Other Way Out | Finalist | [75] | |
2010 | Anna Kerdijk Nicholson | Possession | Winner | [76] |
Peter Bakowski | Beneath Our Armour | Finalist | [77] | |
Ian McBryde | The Adoption Order | Finalist | [77] |