History Of The Newcastle Poetry Prize

In September 1980, Peter Goldman stood in the middle of Civic Park during the Mattara Festival and handed out an anthology of poetry to passers-by. The A4 photocopied collection featured poems from local Hunter writers, with contributors ranging in age from six to eighty-one.

This humble anthology paved the way for the first official Mattara Poetry Prize in 1981, which has gone on to become the richest poetry competition in the country, and is now known as the Newcastle Poetry Prize.

Today the Prize is one of the major events of the literary calendar in Australia, bringing entries from across the nation. Each year, local and national poets compete with internationally recognised names such as Peter Porter, Les Murray, Bruce Dawe, Philip Salom, M T C Cronin, Jan Owen, Robert Adamson and Judith Beveridge.

No less illustrious has been the list of judges casting their eye over the competitions, with Christopher Pollintz, Peter Porter, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Paul Kavanagh, Les Murray, Dame Leonie Kramer, Fay Zwicky, Dorothy Hewett, Antigone Kefala and Robert Gray, to name just a few.

More recently the Newcastle Poetry Prize has included a New Media prize, creating a forum for the new technology poets in the country.

The Hunter Writers Centre has administered the Prize since 2002 and is grateful to the University of Newcastle and Newcastle City Council for their on-going support.

 

SPONSORS
The University of Newcastle	Newcastle City Council	Australia Council for the Arts	NSW Ministry for the Arts