Australia’s award-winning young poets share their voices

The Australian Government recognises and congratulates the outstanding achievement of the winners of the 38th Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards, Australia’s longest-running poetry competition.

The annual national competition aims to spark the interest of school students through poetry by providing an opportunity to exercise their literary creativity and self-expression.

Australia’s young poets will celebrate their achievements at an in-person ceremony today, after the pandemic forced the event to be held online for the previous two years.

More than 6,000 entries were received from schools around the country, demonstrating the strong interest that many students have in poetry, literary creativity, and self-expression.

It was great to see so many students take on the challenge of crafting poems in response to the this year’s theme ‘In My Opinion’, which provided students with the freedom to use their voice to tackle any topic they wanted.

I applaud every student who gave it a go, with every poem offering a fascinating insight into the unique perspectives of students of all ages and the issues they face.

I urge all students who participated in this year’s competition to keep fostering that spark of creativity and explore their passion for literature.

The winners of the 2022 Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards are:

Visit www.dorothea.com.au for more information.