Best of Australian Poems 2023
Best of Australian Poems is an annual anthology collecting previously published and unpublished poems to create a poetic snapshot and barometer of the year that was. Capturing the richness and diversity of Australian poetry across a timeframe of 1 July 2022–1 August 2023, the series (now in its third year) will explore how poetic responses to the contemporary moment develop with each passing year.
The 2023 book opens with an introduction by its editors, highly respected poets and editors Gig Ryan and Panda Wong. Gig Ryan is one of the country’s most highly recognised and read poets, with major awards for her poetry over decades, and a prominent publication profile both here and overseas. Panda Wong is on the vanguard of Australian literature as a poet, editor and performer whose work spans the page, stage and digital space. Previous editors of this prestigious series have been Ellen van Neerven and Toby Fitch (2021), and Jeanine Leane and Judith Beveridge (2022).
The Best of Australian Poems (BoAP) series is published by Australia’s national poetry organisation, Australian Poetry, and will feature two different guest editors each year, to amplify the range of voices selected. It is funded by the Australia Council for the Arts and individual patrons.
Gig Ryan’s New and Selected Poems (Giramondo, 2011); Selected Poems, (Bloodaxe Books, U.K.), was winner of the 2012 Grace Leven Prize for Poetry and the 2012 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. She has also written songs with Disband on Six Goodbyes (1988), and with Driving Past on Real Estate (1999) and Travel (2006). She was Poetry Editor of The Age from 1998–2016. She is a freelance reviewer; next book forthcoming eventually.
Panda Wong is a Malaysian-Chinese poet who lives on unceded Wurundjeri land. Her first chapbook angel wings dumpster fire was published by Puncher & Wattmann in 2022. Her first EP salmon cannon me into the abyss, a collaboration with multiple friends, was released in July 2022. She was also shortlisted for the Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2022.
