US-based poet takes out top poetry prize
Winner flew in for award, was here four days
AN AUSTRALIAN poet and songwriter based in the United States has taken out the coveted Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize presented by the University of Southern Queensland.
Acclaimed writer Natalie DNapoleon, who is based in Santa Barbara in California, was in Australia for just four days at the weekend to collect the prestigious prize for her poem First Blood: A Sestina.
Ms D-Napoleon said the the piece was about mythologising and de-mythologising menstrual periods through the window of a girl.
“I had been working on writing a poetry collection as memoir of my childhood growing up on a farm on the outskirts of Fremantle, Western Australia,” she said.
“I was writing these little vignettes of my childhood and I always knew I wanted to write a poem about getting my first period, but to do it in a way which wasn’t obvious, but rather mythical.”
She said she wanted to enter the USQ poetry competition after seeing it promoted in a local newspaper.
“I saw an advertisement for the Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize, and remembered Bruce Dawe’s esteemed name from studying English literature in high school,” she said.
“I am absolutely thrilled to have won. I still can’t believe it.
“I’ve been letting family and friends know and I keep waiting for it to sink in.”
The poem topped more than 1000 entries to win this year’s prize, established in 1999 to honour one of Australia’s most popular and influential poets.