The Sudden Writing Prize 2024 Winner - Eartha Davis

In 2024, Express Media worked with AAWP in judging the Sudden Writing Prize. Below is the winning piece, ‘a' deanamh gràidh, a' deanamh bròn’ by Eartha Davis.

Eartha is a woman of Ngāpuhi heritage living on Wurundjeri land. She placed second in the 2022 Woorilla Poetry Prize Youth Section, was nominated for The Best of the Net Award in 2023, and was shortlisted for the 2024 Creative Writing New Zealand’s Short Story Prize. Her work is published or forthcoming in Wildness, Rabbit, takahē, Frozen Sea, Minarets, Modron, Baby Teeth Journal, Revolute, South Florida Poetry Journal, JMWW, LEON Literary Review, ELJ Editions, and Arboreal Magazine, among others. She is a poetry editor at three journals and an intern at Red Room Poetry.

Judges’ report: We chose ‘a’ deanamh gràidh, a’ deanamh bròn’ as the winner of the 2024 AAWP Express Media Sudden Writing Prize for the sheer delight it takes in the expressive possibilities of language. We appreciated the poem’s a strong voice, formal experimentation, and wordplay. Our favourite cluster of lines demonstrates the expressive, playful nature of the voice and use of wordplay: ‘there are / birds oaring / across oceans’. As seen in this quote and throughout the poem, the imagery is evocative and often surprising: hearts are ‘asleep in their baskets’; we witness ‘two eyelids / unbuttoning / their sleep’; and lovers ‘halve / these hearts / like apples’. We commend the author for the obvious delight they take in experimenting with language, and look forward to reading more of their work.

Second Place – ‘Out West’ – Siena Bordignon

Third Place – ‘Cross by the river’ – Kobi Simpson

Shortlisted/Commended: ‘The commute’ – Saanjana Kapoor, and ‘Behind the scenes’ – Zoe Sorenson

a' deanamh gràidh, a' deanamh bròn

Eartha Davis

There is making love

& then

there is making

sadness / there is

sowing song

& then

there is sowing

rain / there are hearts

asleep in their baskets

& lovers

who halve

these hearts

like apples / there is

me, yes,

& then

there is

you: two eyelids

kissing their

dreaming / (a music

of muscle) / two eyelids

unbuttoning

their sleep / there are

birds oaring

across oceans / (birds

plucking the spirit

from them-

selves) / birds

shedding snow

across a map

of Mountains / you

& I, like

a duet of

rivers / like

a winter-

sized

loss / (we could

be found

in each

other’s

             arms…)