Best of Australian Poems 2024
Publisher: Australian Poetry / Imprint, Puncher & Wattmann
Call-out: opens 3 July 2024. Closes 1 August 2024, 11:59PM.
**Please be advised that if you encounter the message “Sorry, but Best of Australian Poetry 2023 is no longer accepting submissions” when accessing the Wufoo link, we recommend refreshing the page or attempting to access it using an alternative browser. Our team is investigating this issue.**
Best of Australian Poems is an annual anthology collecting previously published and unpublished poems to create a poetic snapshot and barometer of the year that was.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 2023–1 August 2024, the series (now in its fourth year) explores how poetic responses to the contemporary moment develop with each passing year.
The open call-out for submissions will be available via an online Wufoo form from Wednesday 3 July 2024–Thursday 1 August 2024, 11:59PM. Poems submitted for this anthology may be previously published or unpublished, but must have been written and/or first published between 1 July 2023 and 1 August 2024.
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.
BoAP 2024 has a publication date of 1 December. An event will again be presented in partnership with the Wheeler Centre in early 2025.
The book opens with an introduction by its 2024 editors, multiple award-winning and highly respected poets and editors, Kate Lilley and Shastra Deo. Kate is one of the longest-standing poets of repute and respect in the country, with work considered ground-breaking and innovating over decades. Shastra’s own major prizes include the prestigious, national Australian Literature Society Gold Medal and their poetry is also continually experimental and fearless.
Previous editors of this prestigious series have been Ellen van Neerven and Toby Fitch (2021); Jeanine Leane and Judith Beveridge (2022); and Panda Wong and Gig Ryan (2023).
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. It is funded by Creative Australia, Creative Victoria, Copyright Agency Cultural Fund (BoAP 2024 event launch) and individual patrons.
For call-out information and submission guidelines, head here. For enquiries, please contact Editorial Associate Jennifer Nguyen at jen.nguyen@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.
Kate Lilley is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Tilt (Vagabond 2018), winner of the Victorian Premier’s Award for Poetry, and many essays. She has edited two collections, Margaret Cavendish: The Blazing World and Other Writings (Penguin Classics) and Dorothy Hewett: Selected Poems (UWAP). She was a member of the English Department at the University of Sydney 1990–2021 where she is now an Honorary Associate Professor.
Shastra Deo was born in Fiji, raised in Melbourne, and lives in Brisbane. Her first book, The Agonist (UQP 2017), won the 2016 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and the 2018 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. Her second book, The Exclusion Zone, was published by University of Queensland Press in 2023.
Cover Artwork: Sophie Gaur. Cover Design and Publication Designer: Chris Edwards.