Best of Australian Poems 2025
Publisher: Australian Poetry / Imprint, Puncher & Wattmann
Call-out: opens 6 June 2025. Closes: 30 June 2025, 11:59PM (AEST).
Best of Australian Poems is an annual anthology collecting previously published and unpublished poems to create a poetic snapshot and barometer of the year that was. Capturing the richness and diversity of Australian poetry across a timeframe of 1 July 2024–30 June 2025, the series (now in its fifth year) explores how poetic responses to the contemporary moment develop with each passing year.
Poems submitted for this anthology may be previously published or unpublished, but must have been written and/or first published or performed between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025. This year’s Guest Editors are Nam Le and Jill Jones, a powerhouse combination of most highly respected poets, authors and editors. AP is thrilled to be working with Jill and Nam on this volume. The Guest Editors will also independently read as widely as possible work published in this time period by Australia’s incredible poetry sector, including journals, magazines, individual collections and anthologies. They may also independently solicit work for consideration at their discretion.
Previous editors of this prestigious series have been Ellen van Neerven and Toby Fitch (2021); Jeanine Leane and Judith Beveridge (2022); Panda Wong and Gig Ryan (2023); and Kate Lilley and Shastra Deo (2024).
The open call-out for submissions will be available via an online Wufoo form from Friday 6 June 2025–Monday, 30 June 2024, 11:59PM. Poems submitted for this anthology may be previously published or unpublished, but must have been written and/or first published or performed (performance being a form of publication) between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025. BoAP 2025 has a publication date of 1 November.
The Best of Australian Poems (BoAP) series is published by Australia’s national poetry organisation, Australian Poetry, and features two different guest editors each year, to amplify the range of voices selected.
For call-out information and submission guidelines, head here. For enquiries, please contact Editorial Associate Jennifer Nguyen at associate@australianpoetry.org
To support the work of Australian Poetry, please consider subscribing or donating here: australianpoetry.org/subscribe
You do not need to be a subscriber to submit poems to BoAP.
Nam Le is the author of The Boat, On David Malouf, and 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, which was published last year in Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. Poems from it appeared in Heat, Overland, Paris Review, Poetry, Granta, APR, and elsewhere.
Jill Jones’ latest book is Acrobat Music: New & Selected Poems (2023), short-listed for the 2024 John Bray Poetry Prize, long-listed for the 2024 ALS Gold Medal and commended in the 2023 Wesley Michel Wright Prize. In 2021 her book, Wild Curious Air, won the 2021 Wesley Michel Wright Prize, and in 2015 she won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry for The Beautiful Anxiety. Her work is widely published in Australia and internationally. From 2008-2022, she was Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide, and is currently a titleholder at the University. She has also previously worked as an arts administrator, film reviewer, journalist and book editor.
