(from the website of Australian Poetry)
General comments
Theodore Ell, Manisha Anjali and Tim Loveday (2025 Anne Elder Judging Panel).
We’d like to thank all those poets who put their work on the line. It has been a pleasure getting to read, engage with and discuss such a breadth and depth of new works. What we witnessed across the 33 collections entered into the 2025 Anne Elder Award, were themes of parenthood and class struggle, ecocide and end times, surrender and psychiatric distress, the surrealism and strangeness of nature, the complexities of intergenerational violence and wealth, and the absurdities and wonder of language in itself. It feels inadequate grouping these collections simply under the banner ‘debut’, especially considering they collectively prove, yet again, that so-called Australian poetry punches well above its weight class.
The winner and commended works stood out namely for their ambition, scope and inventiveness. They break and bend rules, subvert and reimagine poetic expectations, experiment in syntax, lineation, narrative stakes and form, each one governed by a wholly singular poetic voice. These collections not only contribute to our national poetry but extend our poetic imagination in new and unexpected ways. They are nothing short of a triumph.
(Please refer to the Australian Poetry website for more detailed judges’ comments on the winning entry (Ender Başkan), highly commended entries (Kristyn J. Saunders, and Connor Weightman) and commended entries (Ben Walter, Alison Gorman and Kaya Ortiz) in the award.
