Andrew wins poetry prize

 In News, Poems

Andrew has won the 2016 Melbourne Poets Union International Poetry Prize. The $1,500 prize was awarded to him for his poem “Kyoto Autumn Maples“, which is a sequence of six tanka.

In his Judge’s Report, poet John Jenkins expressed great admiration for “Kyoto Autumn Maples“. His opening comment was:

This winning poem is a model of clarity and economy, of descriptive facility and finely wrought imagery. It is about a foreigner who visits maple groves on the hillsides around Kyoto, Japan.

Competition Judge, John Jenkins

Competition Judge, John Jenkins

After offering detailed comments on each of the six tanka comprising the poem, Jenkins concluded:

Thus the maples and maple walk register a range of human senses and modes of perception, all accreting into an elegant whole; though not in an over-studied way, but with a light, almost casual hand. In spite of its exotic setting, the poem has an unforced familiarity, that of a traveller simply describing a journey, someone on holiday who is simply looking on – yet a traveller who, as it becomes increasingly obvious – also has a clear-minded ability to deeply enter and appreciate other cultures.

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