Best of Australian Poems 2024
Best of Australian Poems is an annual anthology collecting previously published and unpublished poems to create a poetic snapshot and barometer of the year that was.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 2023–1 August 2024, the series (now in its fourth year) explores how poetic responses to the contemporary moment develop with each passing year.
The book opens with an introduction by its 2024 editors, multiple award-winning and highly respected poets and editors, Kate Lilley and Shastra Deo. Kate is one of the longest-standing poets of repute and respect in the country, with work considered ground-breaking and innovating over decades. Shastra’s own major prizes include the prestigious, national Australian Literature Society Gold Medal and their poetry is also continually experimental and fearless.
Previous editors of this prestigious series have been Ellen van Neerven and Toby Fitch (2021); Jeanine Leane and Judith Beveridge (2022); and Panda Wong and Gig Ryan (2023).
The Best of Australian Poems (BoAP) series is published by Australia’s national poetry organisation, Australian Poetry, and features two different guest editors each year, to amplify the range of voices selected. It is funded by Creative Australia and individual patrons.
Kate Lilley is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Tilt (Vagabond 2018), winner of the Victorian Premier’s Award for Poetry, and many essays. She has edited two collections, Margaret Cavendish: The Blazing World and Other Writings (Penguin Classics) and Dorothy Hewett: Selected Poems (UWAP). She was a member of the English Department at the University of Sydney 1990–2021 where she is now an Honorary Associate Professor.
Shastra Deo was born in Fiji, raised in Melbourne, and lives in Brisbane. Her first book, The Agonist (UQP 2017), won the 2016 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and the 2018 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. Her second book, The Exclusion Zone, was published by University of Queensland Press in 2023.
