Emerging Poets Residency 2024 Shortlist

With support from the Adès Foundation and Moonrise on the River, the Emerging Poets Residency encourages the creative trajectory of emerging Australian poets.

Open to emerging poets (having published one full length collection or less) the Residency provides two emerging poets with creative space and a paid stipend based on Yuin country (Bermagui) in 2024.

Following a national call-out process, through which we received 89 applications from exceptional emerging poets across the continents, we are delighted to congratulate the 10 shortlisted poets!

Statement from the Judges

The judges would like to congratulate the 10 poets shortlisted - the first year of shortlisting. The applications threw a diverse palette of experiences, sexualities, identities, and career progressions. It was particularly difficult to narrow these down to 2 poets. Extremely close by are the 8 outstanding shortlisted applicants. All of the shortlisted poets amplify voices in our communities that still need to be heard.

The project proposals from all applications were interesting, nuanced, political and deeply decolonial. As judges, we focussed on impact over artistic merit - recognising the powerful opportunity that this residency on Djirindanj, Yuin Country holds. Reading the work was incredibly inspiring and touching, consistently inviting the dismantling of familiar narratives and invoking complete presence from the privileged seat of the reader.

The First Nations storytellers were particularly a standout - with our Blak poets speaking directly to current and historical politics, Power and the future generations, providing nuance to the Blak literary landscape.

~ Lulu Houdini and Andrew Geoffrey Kwabena Moss, 2024 Emerging Poets Residency Judges