2025 Poetry Prize – Longlist

Congratulations – poets ‘in flight’

In 2025 poets submitting to the Liquid Amber Poetry Prize were invited to respond to the prompt of ‘flight’ and encouraged to riff on this theme as broadly as their imaginations might take them.

This year, as our world convulses in suffering, violence and uncertainty, ‘flight’ seems to speak to many experiences of loss as well as the tenacious possibilities of hope, even transcendence – and poetry provides an essential register for these articulations and the insights that come with them.

The judges said… we were honoured to encounter everyone’s work, both those in this Longlist and those we were unable to include. Your words of heart and courage and the skilfulness of your craft in turns moved, impressed and inspired us. We read your poems aloud to each other, experiencing them from different perspectives, travelling with you in your various flights of exploration – thank you.

The Judges: Willo Drummond, Rose Lucas
and Ali Whitelock

• Shortlist and Emerging Poets announced: August 5th, 2025
• Winners announced: August 12th, 2025
• Anthology launched by Rae White and poets reading:
  Poetry Zoom, 27 November 2025

First prize – $1,250
Second prize – $650
Best Poem by an Emerging Poet – Editing Service Pack with Rose Lucas

Poems on the Longlist will be published in the Anthology (authors receive a copy)

Introducing the Liquid Amber range