In the end, the judges chose Judith Bishop’s unfailingly poised and suggestive poem ‘Still Life with Cockles and Shells’, in which not a word is otiose or misplaced. ‘Velvet of the night’, indeed. ABR congratulates Dr Bishop, who receives $2000 and free entry for life to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Last year she earned an Honourable Mention in the inaugural ABR Poetry Prize.

We thank the other five short-listed poets (Lisa Gorton, Keith Harrison, J.S. Harry, Brendan Ryan and Alex Skovron) for enabling us to present such a rich short list. We’re heartened, too, by the warm response from readers. Trade publishers, many newspapers, even the odd literary festival may be chary of poetry, but that’s not the case with thousands of Australian writers and readers.

In 2003 Judith Bishop completed a PhD in Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. She also has Masters degrees in Writing (Poetry) from Washington University in St Louis, and in European Literature from Cambridge University. She now works as a linguist for Appen Speech Technology in Sydney. Her awards and scholarships are many, including the Marten Bequest Travel Scholarship in Poetry (2002–04). Judith Bishop is a regular contributor to ABR, as a poet, critic and diarist. In this issue, we are delighted to be able to publish a short article on her modus operandi (see page 19).

The next ABR Poetry Prize will be advertised later this year, and the winner will be announced in the April 2007 issue.

Poetry unloosed

The trick, of course, is to find new ways to air poetry and to bypass institutional recalcitrants. The Red Room Company has come up with a most ingenious method — Toilet Door Poetry. (Do not adjust your set.) This month, around Australia, look out during pit stops for six illustrated Australian poems which will appear ‘in spaces that are both very public, and uniquely private … across a mix of Qantas domestic terminals, Greater Union and Village cinemas’. The judges have selected six poems from hundreds of entries. The featured poets are Elizabeth Allen, Liam Femey, Keri Glastonbury, Lisa Gorton, Andrew Slattery and Ed Wright. The organisers have also commissioned Bronwyn Lea to deliver a lecture on ‘poetry and space’ – presumably in a cinema or lounge.

Changes at Black Inc.

Chris Feik, who is now the Publisher at Black Inc., tells us that Black Inc.’s three main annual anthologies will have new editors this year. They are Robert Drewe (Stories), Drusilla Modjeska (Essays) and Dorothy Porter (Poetry).

Melbourne largesse

As with the ABR Poetry Prize, most awards celebrate a particular monograph or individual poem or short story. The few prizes that honour a body of work produced over many years are laudable in themselves. One of the most notable is the Patrick White Literary Award, established in 1973 by the so-called ‘monster of all time’ with the proceeds of his Nobel Prize for Literature, and intended to celebrate writers of distinction whose work has not received due critical acclaim. (Winners have included Gwen Harwood, Bruce Beaver and Thea Astley, not exactly unsung writers, but incontestably deserving recipients.) Now we have the even more lucrative Melbourne Prize for Literature. Run by the Melbourne Prize Trust, this prize is worth $60,000 and will be awarded every three years to a Victorian writer in recognition of outstanding literary achievement. An additional $30,000 will be awarded to a writer who has demonstrated a promising early career. Premier Bracks and his town planners should anticipate quite an influx of published writers. Applications open May 15, and the winners will be announced in November. For more details, go to www.melbourneprize.org or (03) 9650 8800.

Gifts and hobbies

On March 16, Robyn Archer was every bit as busy as Condoleezza Rice, whose peregrinations from US frigate to poolside with Thorpie rather giddied the national media. On the morning of her National Biography Award Annual Lecture, Robyn Archer – cabaret artist, festival director, soi-disant gypsy and much more – announced this year’s NBA short list. The five titles are: Curtin’s Gift (2005), by John Edwards; The Idea of Home (2004), by John Hughes; Balanda (2005), by Mary Ellen Jordan; A Man’s Got to Have a Hobby (2005), by William McInnes; and A Photographer’s Life (2004), by Alasdair McGregor. The winner will have been announced in the press by the time this issue reaches you. This year’s judges were Gay Bilson, Amanda Lohrey and David McCooey.

Meanwhile, during her sparkling, even musical lecture, Robyn Archer remarked on a kind of decorum or ‘seemliness’ in much Australian auto-biography, and hinted that she will feel under no such obligation when she writes her own memoirs. She talked about her long career in the clubs and cabaret and musical theatre. But for Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, she mused, she might have been Julie Anthony. Had she, the national anthem would never have sounded so deep.