By Tyler Wright
The Worrilla Poetry Prize has received a $2,000 grant from Cardinia Shire Council.
Maria Millers founded the prize in 1989 with friend and publisher Louise Rockne after establishing a literary magazine by the name of Worrilla.
“[Ms Rockne] had been publishing a small publication of poetry called Prints, and she was a librarian,” Ms Millers said.
“We started making this prize actually grow, and it did.”
Now in its 31st year, Ms Millers said it the prize “growing in stature” from a local competition to an international one.
“We had winners in India, and we had winners in the US… I’ve had entries from Spain, France, Italy, all over the place,” Ms Millers said.
“The prize is at the point where it’s being acknowledged as a major prize in the Australian poetry calendar…now we get really top poets, but we also get emerging poets and poets who try for the first time and sometimes they actually do succeed and are successful in the prizes.”
Ms Millers said her passion is to promote the youth section, named after Ms Rockne, who died in 2019.
“I would like to see more people from Cardinia and the Dandenongs in general entering. and particularly the youth,” she said.
“The two judges that I’ve had over the last few years, [including] Emilie Zoey Baker… they both said that they’re absolutely stunned by the youth poetry.
“The youth have a lot to say, and so they should.”
Ms Millers said the funding through the council’s Festival and Events Grants Program, will help promote the prize and assist in the organising of the prize event on 19 November, where winners will be announced.
“Everyone’s writing very different poetry. A lot of people have got to catch up and have a look what present day poetry is like,” she said.
“Some [people] succeed writing beautiful poetry like in the form of a sonnet, which has definite number of lines and definite rhyme schemes.
“But sometimes it can actually limit you as well, if you’re thinking about ‘what can I rhyme with this?’ Rather than trying to say what you want to say.”
The poem which one the Judith Rodriguez Open Prize in 2022 was Tug Dumbly’s ‘Pod’; a poem about the degradation of the environment.
“Modern poetry can be about what’s happening in the world; It’s not about roses and violets and sweet words,” Ms Millers said.
Cardinia Shire Council mayor, councillor Tammy Radford, said the council is proud to annually deliver the Festival and Events Grants Program which supports a “comprehensive and diverse” mix of local festivals and events, so that all community members have “access to and may participate in activities that reflect and celebrate local identity, interests and diversity”.
Entries for the 2023 Worrilla Poetry Prize close on 30 September.
Successful recipients were notified in July.
For more information, visit https://www.woorilla.org.au/
