Hera Lindsay Bird wins 2017 Sarah Broom Prize
The Prize follows the MA in Creative Writing graduate's recent Ockham NZ Book Awards win for her debut poetry collection.
Poet and Victoria MA in Creative Writing graduate Hera Lindsay Bird is the winner of the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize 2017.
Bird is a Wellington-based poet and bookseller whose debut book of poems, the eponymous Hera Lindsay Bird, was published by Victoria University Press in 2016. It has been reprinted many times since, her poems being celebrated for their verbal flamboyance and humour, their 'playful and exuberant' qualities (NZ Listener). Bird completed the MA in Creative Writing at Victoria's International Institute of Modern Letters in 2011, winning that year's Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing for the manuscript that became Hera Lindsay Bird. She recently won the prize for Best First Book of Poetry at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Sandi King and fellow MA in Creative Writing graduate Cliff Fell joined Bird as finalists for the prize at the Sarah Broom Poetry event at the Auckland Writers Festival on Sunday 21 May. Each read work from their prize submissions, introduced by guest judge for 2017, Britain's Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
Duffy describes the entries for the prize as 'eclectic and exciting', and the three shortlisted poets as 'those who shone brightest in a sparkling year'.
The Sarah Broom Poetry Prize was established to celebrate the life and work of Sarah Broom (1972-2013), author of Tigers at Awhitu and Gleam. It is now in its fourth year, and we are pleased again to be working together with the Auckland Writers Festival to showcase and celebrate New Zealand poetry.
(Media release text adapted from the NZ Poetry Shelf website, with thanks.)