Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize for Orange poet Angela Malone

WooHoo!!!! Congratulations to Orange writer, artist and poet Angela Malone (author of Lucia's Measure) who has won the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize at Tasmanian Living Writers' Week for her work Drawing in the Birth Room. The Prize was created in 1996 in memory of the much loved Tasmanian poet whose work was highly acclaimed throughout Australia. Judges Dr Robyn Rowland and John Foulcher described the poem as "simple, unpretentious and without a stumble or jarring word. "It is a poem that could not be bypassed. There is a deep loveliness in it as it draws the line of a birth into the lines of a life. The idea that the child was drawing before birth, the places and experiences that the mother was living, is woven back into itself, as, three years later, the child draws her watery first landscape. The miracle of life unfolding is shown, not said, and the love that emanates from it is powerful." They said the poems they were looking for needed to leave the reader changed in some way – emotionally, intellectually or ideally both. A total of 250 poems were sent in to the competition with the final shortlist of 25 clearly publishable work. For the complete judges report go to the Island magazine website: http://www.islandmag.com/ Three Highly Commended poets were Mike Ladd (SA) for Bedroom Ceiling Fan, Kristen Lang (Tas) for Good Nighting the Mirror and Joan Kerr (Vic) for Retrospective. Read more about Angela's inspiration in the Central Western Daily: http://orange.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/angela-shows-she-has-the-write-stuff/1260401.aspx