Whitsundays Writers Festival Announces Longlist for 2026 Heart Award Poetry Prize
The Whitsundays Writers Festival has announced the longlist for its 2026 Heart Award Poetry Prize, narrowing a national field of 74 entries down to 28 poems as judging enters its second stage.
Entries were received from poets across every state and territory of Australia, reflecting the competition’s growing reputation and the breadth of contemporary Australian poetry — from tightly crafted lyric work to narrative ballads, comic verse, and formally experimental pieces.
“The standard this year was genuinely outstanding,” said Richard Evans, the Festival Director. “Narrowing entries down was not an easy task. Every poem on this longlist earned its place through the strength of its craft, its voice, and the way it achieved what it set out to do.”
The Longlist
The Poetry Prize offers a first prize of $1,000 and $500 for the runner up for up to 50-lines of unpublished poems.
We are delighted to announce the longlisted submissions for the 2026 Poetry Prize:
Breaking News, Anne Casey (NSW)
Caught You Red-Handed, Himara Jayasundara (SA)
Don’t Let The Old Lady In, Jan Smith (Qld)
Echo, Diane Robinson (NSW)
EDT80s, Scott Jackson (NSW)
For One Who Has No Stone To Say, Greg Lewis (Qld)
Night Flight, Anne Casey (NSW)
Old Salty, Colleen Keating (NSW)
Pino Grigio Beside the Water, Suzy Gordon (Qld)
Possession, Jo Skinner (Qld)
Red-eyed Rain, David Atkinson (NSW)
She’s a Beauty, Melinda Jane (SA)
Special, Scott Jackson (NSW)
Spider Woman, Josephine Seago (Qld)
Spitfire, Richard Pellatt (Qld)
Stories in Every Strand, Paul Fuller (Qld)
Subsea, Andrea Louise Thomas (Vic)
Super Bra, Hemi Croft (WA)
Swimming Pool at Hotel Borobodur, Jakarta, Chris Palazzolo (WA)
The Bay, Pip Griffin (NSW)
The Bush Blanket (A light hearted look at the history of the blanket), Ken Cleine (Qld)
The Furthest Tent, Scott Jackson (NSW)
The Pendulum of Green and Frost, Julie Butler (NSW)
The Yellow Wall, John Glanville (Qld)
Thin, Scott Jackson (NSW)
Tran Sends Ants, Kim Pham (NSW)
Unravelled by the Shallows, David Atkinson (NSW)
Verdigrisleeves, Paris Rosemont (NSW)
A rigorous, fair process
All entries were judged anonymously, with judges assessing each poem without any knowledge of the poet’s identity. Poems were scored individually against a consistent set of criteria — purpose and coherence, technical craft, originality of voice, and emotional or intellectual impact. This judging process ensures that vastly different styles of poetry could each be judged fairly on their own terms, rather than compared directly against one another.
“A gentle bush ballad and an experimental free-verse piece are doing very different things,” Richard said. “Our process is designed so that each poem is judged on how successfully it achieves its own aims, not measured against a single template of what poetry should look like.”
What happens next
Judging now enters its second stage, in which the longlisted poems will undergo further, more detailed assessment to determine a shortlist. From that shortlist, the Festival’s judging panel will determine the winners of the 2026 Poetry Prize, to be announced at the Whitsundays Writers Festival.
The scale and quality of this year’s entries reflect the growing national standing of the Heart Awards and the Whitsundays Writers Festival more broadly.
“To draw a field like this, genuinely national, genuinely diverse, and genuinely strong, is a significant milestone for a regional festival,” Richard said. “It tells us poetry has a real and valued place in Australian literary life, and that the Whitsundays is becoming a meaningful part of that conversation.”
The shortlist will be announced in the coming weeks.