Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry

The Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry, formerly known as the C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has an enumeration of A$25,000. The winner of this category prize vies with 4 other category winners for overall Victorian Prize for Literature valued at an additional A$100,000.

The prize was formerly known as the C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry from inception until 2010, when the awards were re-established under the stewardship of the Wheeler Centre and restarted with new prize amounts and a new name. It was named after the early twentieth century vernacular poet C. J. Dennis.

Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry

Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry winners and finalists

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2011	Cate Kennedy	The Taste of River Water	Winner	[1]
	Libby Hart	This Floating World	Finalist	[1]
	Claire Potter	Swallow	Finalist	[1]
2012	John Kinsella	Armour	Winner	[2][3]
	Michelle Cahill	Vishvarupa	Finalist	[2][4]
	John Mateer	Southern Barbarians	Finalist	[2][4]
2014[a]	Jennifer Maiden	Liquid Nitrogen	Winner	[5]
	Michael Brennan	Autoethnographic	Finalist	[6][7]
	Brendan Ryan	Travelling Through the Family	Finalist	[6][7]
2015	Jill Jones	The Beautiful Anxiety	Winner	[8][9]
	Andy Kissane	Radiance	Finalist	[8][10][11]
	Susan Bradley Smith	Bed For All Who Come	Finalist	[8][10][11]
2016	Alan Loney	Crankhandle	Winner	[12][13]
	Lucy Dougan	The Guardians	Finalist	[14]
	Peter Rose	The Subject of Feeling	Finalist	[14]
2017	Maxine Beneba Clarke	Carrying the World	Winner	[15][16]
	Eileen Chong	Painting Red Orchids	Finalist	[15][17]
	Tina Giannoukos	Bull Days	Finalist	[15][17]
2018	Bella Li	Argosy	Winner	[18][19]
	Jennifer Maiden	The Metronome	Finalist	[18][20]
	Eddie Paterson	redactor	Finalist	[18][20]
2019	Kate Lilley	Tilt	Winner	[21][22]
	Eunice Andrada	Flood Damages	Finalist	[23][24]
	Rae White	Milk Teeth	Finalist	[23][24]
2020	Charmaine Papertalk Green	Nganajungu Yagu	Winner	[25][26]
	Louise Crisp	Yuiquimbiang	Finalist	[27]
	L. K. Holt	Birth Plan	Finalist	[27]
2021	David Stavanger	Case Notes	Winner	[28][29][30]
	Rebecca Jessen	Ask Me About the Future	Finalist	[31][32]
	Ellen van Neerven	Throat	Finalist	[31][32]
2022	Maria Takolander	Trigger Warning	Winner	[33][34]
	Maxine Beneba Clarke	How Decent Folk Behave	Finalist	[35]
	Andy Jackson	Human Looking	Finalist	[35]
2023	Gavin Yuan Gao	At the Altar of Touch	Winner	[36][37][38]
	Scott-Patrick Mitchell	Clean	Finalist	[36][39]
	Simon Tedeschi	Fugitive	Finalist	[36][39]
2024	Grace Yee	Chinese Fish	Winner	[40][41]
	Susie Anderson	the body country	Finalist	[40]
	Claire Miranda Roberts	Kangaroo Paw	Finalist	[40]
2025	Jeanine Leane	Gawimarra: Gathering	Winner	[42]
	Jake Goetz	Holocene Pointbreaks	Finalist	[43]
	Hasib Hourani	rock flight	Finalist	[43]

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry (inactive)

This award is no longer active. It was renamed in 2011 to Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry (see above).

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry winners and finalists

Year	Author	Title	Ref.	Ref.
1985	Rosemary Dobson	The Three Fates	Winner	[44]
	Kevin Hart	Your Shadow	Winner	[44]
1986	Rhyll McMaster	Washing the Money	Winner	[45]
	John A. Scott	St. Clair	Winner	[45]
1987	Lily Brett	The Auschwitz Poems	Winner	[46]
1988	Judith Beveridge	The Domesticity of Giraffes	Winner	[47]
1989	Gwen Harwood	Bone Scan	Winner	[48]
1990	Robert Adamson	The Clean Dark	Winner	[49]
1991	Jennifer Maiden	The Winter Baby	Winner	[50]
1992	Robert Harris	Jane, Interlinear and Other Poems	Winner	[51]
1993	Les Murray	Translations from the Natural World	Winner	[52]
1994	Robert Gray	Certain Things	Winner	[53]
1995	Bruce Beaver	Anima and Other Poems	Winner	[54]
1996	Peter Bakowski	In the Human Night	Winner	[55]
1997	Les Murray	Subhuman Redneck Poems	Winner	[56]
1998	Coral Hull	Broken Land	Winner	[57]
1999	Gig Ryan	Pure and Applied	Winner	[58]
2000	John Millett	Iceman	Winner	[59]
2001	John Mateer	Barefoot Speech	Winner	[60]
2002	Robert Gray	Afterimages......syp	Winner	[61]
2003	Emma Lew	Anything the Landlord Touches	Winner
	Jordie Albiston	The Fall	Finalist
	S. K. Kelen	Goddess of Mercy	Finalist
2004	Judith Beveridge	Wolf Notes	Winner
	Michael Brennan	The Imageless World	Finalist
	Anthony Lawrence	The Sleep of a Learning Man	Finalist
2005	M. T. C. Cronin	<More Or Less Than>1-100	Winner
	John Kinsella	Doppler Effect	Finalist
	Morgan Yasbincek	Firelick	Finalist
2006	John Tranter	Urban Myths: 210 Poems	Winner
	B. R. Dionysius	Universal Andalusia	Finalist
	Susan Hampton	The Kindly Ones	Finalist
2007	Judy Johnson	Jack	Winner	[62]
	Robert Adamson	The Goldfinches of Babylon	Finalist	[63]
	John Watson	Montale: A Biographical Anthology	Finalist	[63]
2008	Lisa Gorton	Press Release	Winner	[64]
	Judith Bishop	Event	Finalist	[65]
	Barry Hill	As We Draw Ourselves	Finalist	[65]
2009	Robert Adamson	The Golden Bird	Winner
	Carol Jenkins	Fishing in the Devonian	Finalist	[66]
	Bronwyn Lea	The Other Way Out	Finalist	[66]
2010	Anna Kerdijk Nicholson	Possession	Winner	[67]
	Peter Bakowski	Beneath Our Armour	Finalist	[68]
	Ian McBryde	The Adoption Order	Finalist	[68]

Notes

1. Prior to 2014, the award year was directly related to the year of publication. In 2014, the award year referred to books published in the previous year. That is, in 2012, the award went to books published in 2012. In 2014, the award went to books published in 2013.