Ōtepoti Poets Top The Kathleen Grattan Prize For A Sequence Of Poems

International Writers’ Workshop NZ is delighted to announce that Ōtepoti Dunedin poets Nicola Thorstensen and Michelle Elvy are the 2024 winner and runner-up of The Kathleen Grattan Prize for a Sequence of Poems judged by Anne Kennedy from Tamaki Makaurau Auckland.

Nicola Thorstensen receives the prestigious $1000 prize for her sequence ‘Reclamation’, a tribute to her father John Thorstensen, and an exploration of childhood loss and grief. She wrote it as part of a creative-critical Masters’ thesis while studying at Massey University, and edited it during an NZSA mentorship this year. Nicola is an active member of two writing groups, and her work has appeared in Landfall, takahē, Poetry New Zealand and many other Aotearoa New Zealand poetry anthologies. She believes that the arts are critically important in these difficult times and adds, “I’m grateful and honoured to win this award, and wish to thank the Grattan family for their generosity and passion for poetry, IWW for running the competition, and judge Anne Kennedy for her thoughtful feedback.”

Michelle Elvy is awarded runner-up for her sequence, ‘The map in your palm’. Michelle, originally from the Chesapeake Bay on the US east coast, spent many years aboard her sailboat, arriving in Aotearoa in 2008. The poems in her sequence draw from her relationship to the sea, moving across geographies and time, floating multiple lives over oceans, navigating connection and loss, finding solace in the spaces of our natural world. Michelle is a writer, editor and creative writing teacher. Her books include the everrumble and the other side of better, and many anthologies.

Anne Kennedy said judging The Kathleen Grattan Prize for a Sequence of Poems was a lovely experience, but also agonising. She was impressed by the scope of many of the entries – how poets manage to create structures of poems that are unified yet offer surprises. She said that the breadth of ideas among the entries shows that poets are working in an essential way for our times and that we need poetry more than ever to express the otherwise inexpressible. On choosing her winner and runner-up she said she was looking for a sequence that uses poetic techniques skilfully, that asks the reader to consider a slice of life or the world in a new way, and that takes the reader on a well- structured journey through the poems.

Anne also awarded Highly Commended to Kerrin P. Sharpe (Ōtautahi Christchurch) and to Sarah Scott (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington).

The Kathleen Grattan Prize of a Sequence of Poems was established by the late Jocelyn Grattan in memory of her mother. International Writers’ Workshop has had the honour of running the competition for its members since its inception in 2009, and over the years it has been won by both established and emerging poets. The Prize is the smaller of the two poetry competitions funded by the Jocelyn Grattan Charitable Trust, the other being the biennial Kathleen Grattan Award, run by Landfall / Otago University Press.

International Writers’ Workshop NZ (IWW), which formed in 1976, aims to encourage new writers and inspire more experienced writers with workshops and writing competitions covering a range of genres, as well as poetry, throughout the year. Workshops are held twice monthly from February to November and alternate between rooms at St Aidans Church in Auckland’s Northcote, and Zoom.

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