Australian Book Review is delighted to announce the winner of the 2024 Peter Porter Poetry Prize is Dan Hogan for their poem‘Workarounds’, which was published in the January-February 2024 issue of ABR. This was announced at an online ceremony on 23 January 2024.
First presented in 2005, the Porter Prize is one of the world’s leading prizes for a new poem in English. It is worth a total of $10,000, of which the overall winner receives $6,000.
This year our judges were Lachlan Brown, Dan Disney and Felicity Plunkett. They chose the winner and five shortlisted poems from a field of 1,066 entries. Poets from twenty-one different countries entered the Prize.
The judges said this of ‘Workarounds’:
‘“Workarounds” remains a stunning critique of the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution, in a lexicon that could (almost) be the gibberish of a pre-ChatGPT machine attempting to replicate human thought … but not quite. Amid apparent non sequiturs, the heroically outlandish expressiveness, the absurd sleights and puns, there are moments of challenge to those alert to the fact that this poem may be investing in social critique rather than mere post-LangPo fun.’
2024 Porter Prize Shortlist
The five shortlisted poems were (in alphabetical order):
‘Poem of the Dead Woman’ by Judith Nangala Crispin (NSW)
‘Immigration Triction’ by Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon (WA)
‘Workarounds’ by Dan Hogan (NSW)*
‘Cuttle’ by Meredi Ortega (Scotland/UK)
‘Blagaj, Mostar’ by Dženana Vucic (Germany)
*winning poem
The judges said this of the shortlist:
‘Arriving at this shortlist, each of us was reading for language that was concise and perspicacious, language that arrested our attention in ways that immediately rewarded rereading. In uniquely different ways, each shortlisted poem demonstrates compelling awareness of the function not only of the poetic line but, more broadly, of syntax, grammar, diction and the power relations transmitted therein.’
The shortlisted poems were published in the January-February 2024 issue of ABR, copies of which can be purchased here.
About the shortlisted poets:
Judith Nangala Crispin is a poet and visual artist of Indigenous and mixed descent, living on unceded Yuin Country on the NSW Southern Tablelands. She has published two collections of poetry, and her verse novel will be released in 2024. Judith won the 2020 Blake prize for poetry and has been shortlisted for various other prizes. She has been commissioned by The National Gallery of Australia, The National Museum of Australia, Musica Viva, and Red Room Poetry. In 2024, a poem Judith wrote about her dog will be deposited on the moon, by NASAs Polaros mission, as part of the Lunar Codex.
Natalie Damjanovi
ch-Napoleon is a writer, songwriter, and educator who was raised on a farm by her Croatian-immigrant parents. Her poetry and creative non-fiction have appeared in Meanjin, Cordite, The Found Poetry Review, Westerly, Australian Poetry Journal and Writer’s Digest (US). Natalie’s work has been widely anthologised in both the United States and Australia. She has won the Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize (2018) and the KSP Poetry Prize (2019). Her début poetry collection, First Blood, was released in 2019 (Ginninderra Press). Her second poetry book, If There Is a Butterfly That Drinks Tears, on motherhood in the wake of the Trump presidency, was released in 2023 by Life Before Man/Gazebo Books.
Dan Hogan (they/them) is a writer from San Remo, NSW (Awabakal and Darkinjung Country). They currently live and work on Dharug and Gadigal Country (Sydney). Dan’s debut book of poetry, Secret Third Thing (Cordite, 2023), won the Five Islands Poetry Prize. Dan’s work has been recognised by the Val Vallis Award, the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, and the XYZ Prize, among others. In their spare time, Dan runs small DIY publisher Subbed In. More of their work can be found at: 2dan2hogan.com.
Meredi Ortega is from Western Australia and now lives in Scotland. Her poems have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The Poetry Review, Meanjin, The Best Australian Science Writing 2023, and Scientific American. She contributed to the deep mapping anthology Four Rivers, Deep Maps (UWAP, 2022).
Dženana Vucic is a Bosnian-Australian writer, poet and critic currently based in Berlin. Her writing has appeared in Sydney Review of Books, Overland, Meanjin, Australian Poetry Journal, Australian Multilingual Writing Project, and others. She is currently working on her first book and tweets at @dzenanabanana.
The shortlist was derived from a longlist of eleven poems.
2024 Porter Prize Longlist
The eleven longlisted poems were (in alphabetical order):
‘Deep Time’ by Paula Bohince (USA)
‘A Christmas Ode’ by Marguerite Bunce (France)
‘Poem of the Dead Woman’ by Judith Nangala Crispin (NSW)*
‘Immigration Triction’ by Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon (WA)*
‘Portals’ by John Foulcher (ACT)
‘Workarounds’ by Dan Hogan (NSW)*
‘Whipbirds’ by Greg McLaren (NSW)
‘Cuttle’ by Meredi Ortega (Scotland)*
‘Bingeing Sestina’ by Petra Reid (Scotland)
‘Blagaj, Mostar’ by Dženana Vucic (Germany)*
‘Have they culled the roadside deer’ by Meredith Wattison (NSW)
*shortlisted poets
Click here for more information about past winners and to read their poems.
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We gratefully acknowledge the long-standing support of Morag Fraser AM and Andrew Taylor AM and support in memory of Kate Boyce.