Noel Rowe Poetry Award 2025
Miroslav Sandev, Love Letters and Demands - WINNER
Megan Cartwright, Evolution
Jake Dennis, Journeying
Verity Laughton, Snake/Skin
2025 JUDGES' REPORT
Miroslav Sandev, Love Letters and Demands - WINNER
It has been an honour to judge the NRPA again in 2025, after a break of several years. It is always exciting to get a snapshot of the current poetry scene and read manuscripts with a variety of poetic voices and styles.
This year we have awarded the prize to Miroslav Sandev for his manuscript Love Letters and Demands. The protagonist in many of these poems is a jaunty urban raconteur, sifting through the foibles of twenty-first-century daily life. With wit and irony, the collection offers astute observations of media, technology, politics and pop culture. The voice is assured and at times detached, but deeply felt and never indifferent.
Other poems engage emotionally through explorations of relationships, desire, natural disasters and the pandemic. The poet handles a range of poetic forms with skill, culminating in a sharp, original collection.
Elizabeth Allen, Jane Gibian and Vivian Smith
Shortlisted manuscripts
Megan Cartwright, Evolution
This manuscript is bold and impassioned, with a strong female voice. These poems don’t pull any punches, confronting issues such as gendered violence, motherhood, male control, and what it means to inhabit a female body. The confessional tone and richly layered images, at times visceral and violent, work to create an intense, pressurised atmosphere that commands attention.
Jake Dennis, Journeying
This is a lively manuscript with an impressive range of subjects and cultural references. The many ekphrastic poems respond vividly to painters, sculptors and musicians. The poet thoughtfully examines cross-cultural identity, postcolonialism and racism in contemporary Australia, alongside explorations of masculinity and desire.
Verity Laughton, Snake/Skin
This manuscript is populated with a multitude of voices and stories. It explores the natural world in poems that by turns telescope into precise details and then expand out to a wider, global perspective. The discursive style references and reimagines myths and literary characters, such as Miranda in The Tempest. The poet utilises a range of poetic voices, including those of fictional and historical figures, to great effect.
Vagabond Press look forward to publishing Miroslav Sandev's Love Letters and Demands in 2026. Congratulations to Miroslav and the shortlisted poets and thanks to the judges and all the poets who entered a manuscript in the 2025 Noel Rowe Poetry Award.
The Noel Rowe Poetry Award for 2017
Thom Sullivan’s, Carte Blanche – Winner
Shortlisted titles
Chris Armstrong, Silage
Chris Brown, Hotel Universo
Shey Marque, Keeper of the Ritual
Audrey Molloy, Envy is a Daylily
Kerri Shying, Know Your Country
The Noel Rowe Poetry Award for 2015
Emily Stewart, Knocks – Winner
Shortlisted titles
Chris Armstrong, The Watershed
Fiona Britton, Internal Medicine
Claire Roberts, The Fragile Season
Anna Ryan-Punch, Folding Down Corners
Anders Villani, Aril Wire