2020 Awards

In a most unusual year, the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards were still able to adapt and push through to captivate a nation of young poets. Not only did we survive, but we also beat last year’s entry numbers with a whopping 7,600 submissions!

Normally, winners and their families would be flown to Gunnedah to be presented with their prizes, however, this year the Awards came to them. They each put an enormous amount of effort into supplying us with a video reciting their poems and saying what winning their award means to them.

The Society engaged a professional film crew to capture our whole 2020 Presentation Ceremony where we hear from the President, Judges, Ministers of Education, Patrons, Winners and our Project Officer. It’s a true delight to watch and we encourage you to watch it to understand how important poetry is, and the breadth of Australia we reach with this national competition. See it here: www.dorothea.com.au/presentation-ceremony.

The Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards wishes to thank all the teachers, students and parents who submitted poetry this year, as well as the sponsors, special guests and VIP's who make this whole competition possible.

Click on the 2020 poster on the right to see the 2020 Presentation Booklet!

We look forward to seeing next year's entries!

Congratulations to the below students who captivated the judges with their imagination and creativity.

Also worth mentioning are the students who received a Commended, Highly-Commended or Shortlisted poem. Our judges gave special feedback for each one. Our Project Officer, Brittany, has put together a document containing a list of the poems, as well as the judges’ comments.

Click here to see the document.

The 2020 anthology is available to pre-order now. We also offer a digital version to reduce paper wastage. Orders are expected to be sent in October-November.

See order form here.

Our winners and runners-up for this year are as follows:

Category	Poet	Poem & Judges' Comments
Lower Primary Winner	Nina Cordaro	“This is a Wonderful World”
Lower Primary Runner Up	Adele Scully	“Savour the Moment”
Upper Primary Winner	Iris Jiang	“Cherry-Blossom”
Upper Primary Runner Up	Dorian Ndongo-Empesa	“Haiku”
Assisted Learning Primary Winner	Curtis Giang	“Throw, Bounce, Fetch”
Assisted Learning Primary Runner Up	Larissa Ma	“Gone”
David Maher Award for Small Schools Winner	Max Shearer	“Darkness”
Kurrumbede Award Winner	Evie Watt	“Cotton”
Junior Secondary Winner	Ivy Downes	“Stars”
Junior Secondary Runner Up	Janice Han	“Poem 1”
Senior Secondary Winner	Theo Harkin	“mist”
Senior Secondary Runner Up	Janiru Liyanage	“My mother won’t let me write about home”
Assisted Learning Secondary Winner	Lola Wang	“Flowers”
Assisted Learning Secondary Runner Up	Adrian Burns	“Running Wild Tomorrow”
Schools' Award Primary	Redeemer Baptist School, North Parramatta NSW
Schools’ Award Secondary	Darwin Middle School, Parap NT