Best of Australian Poems 2022

‘All poetry is story telling – an exchange between writer and reader – a meeting place – an invitation to another’s experience, history, standpoint, insight, commentary.—Jeanine Leane, Judith Beveridge.

Best of Australian Poems is a new annual anthology series collecting previously published and unpublished poems to create a poetic snapshot of the year that was. Capturing the richness and diversity of Australian poetry, the series, now in its second year, will also explore how poetic responses to the contemporary moment develop.

The book opens with an introduction by its 2022 editors, multiple award-winning and highly respected poets and editors, Jeanine Leane and Judith Beveridge. Alongside each being prominent poets in their own rights, both Leane, a Wiradjuri First Nations poet, and Beveridge have extensive experience as poetry teachers, academics and poetry anthologists previously.

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 Victoria, the Australia Council for the Arts, the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund and individual patrons.