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Booranga Bonanza
5 Islands Press authors Kai Jensen and Elizabeth Walton will be the featured poets at the monthly Booranga Writers Centre poetry reading on Friday 17 April. Elizabeth's book, How to Read a City, is hot from the press, published just last month. Victorian poet Dani Netherclift has called her book “a call to urgent action” that is “also a love letter for what is still present, precious and possible”. Kai Jensen's book, The Zebra Path of Tree Light , was published last year. Th
2 days ago
A Gray Day Out
By a very happy coincidence, Australian Book Review chose to publish Mark Tredinnick's excellent essay on Robert Gray in the same week as 5 Islands Press opened submissions the 2026 Robert Gray Prize for poetry. Mark, as some of you will know, knew Robert Gray well, and was a great admirer and promoter of his work. Last year, he conceived, coordinated and edited Bright Crockery Days —a festschrift in Gray's honour. Twenty-four literary luminaries each contributed an essay on
3 days ago
Robert Gray Prize 2026 Now Open
Submissions are now open for the 2026 Robert Gray Prize for Poetry, offering a $5000 cash prize and publication in Oystercatcher Three for shortlisted poems. Deadline: May 18 at 11:59 pm. Following the extremely enthusiastic response to the inaugural Robert Gray Prize for Poetry last year, 5Islands Press is again offering the prize, which we hope will be a fixture of the Australian poetry calendar. View the full terms and conditions here . Or go straight to the entry form by
Apr 6
A Gray Day Out
By a very happy coincidence, Australian Book Review chose to publish Mark Tredinnick's excellent essay on Robert Gray in the same week as 5 Islands Press opened submissions the 2026 Robert Gray Prize for poetry. Mark, as some of you will know, knew Robert Gray well, and was a great admirer and promoter of his work. Last year, he conceived, coordinated and edited Bright Crockery Days —a festschrift in Gray's honour. Twenty-four literary luminaries each contributed an essay on
The Ease of Eggs: Nourishment for the Soul
This week, we celebrate the arrival of Benjamin Dodd's third poetry collection, The Ease of Eggs . The world Dodds witnesses and recalls in these tidy, playful lyric poems has a dignity and courtesy and unexpected kindness. And what a various, surprising and surprisingly tender world it is. As Carol Jenkins has written: "This book ... is a cabinet of the eclectic: school observations, the universe at large, men and gender, cinematic culture, science at work. But always we a
Definitely A Woman We Should Listen To
A Woman Talks to Her Tongue speaks of a family, its secrets and silences, unacknowledged griefs and inherited traumas. Written from the point of view of the fifth child in a complex family, the early poems catch and release a few moments in a daughter’s life, from her early childhood to parenthood. The second section of the book is a kind and passionate cry for truth-telling, femininity and creativity, and includes a series of remarkable monologues that examine silence and b
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