Lynn Jenner
Poet Lynn Jenner has won the 2025 Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award for her manuscript ‘The Gum Trees of Kerikeri’, a collection set in Te Tai Tokerau Northland that reflects on place, history and belonging through finely observed details. Jenner started writing her manuscript in late 2024 and wrote through summer, autumn and winter.
‘Days of tropical storms were perfect for writing – as were days of perfect blue skies. Looking back at a poem I wrote in late 2023 (‘Mysterium’, published in Turbine | Kapohau), I realised I was already becoming fascinated with the gum trees I can see from my writing desk. I had started to think about them as more than just tall and beautiful – I was seeing them as symbols, remnants of ideas about land use that were current in this area in the 1920s and 30s. I was also beginning to think about my own situation as yet another new arrival in Northland, just the latest in a long line of colonists.’
Her poems, she says, ‘reflect my experience of arriving in a place with a long and complex history, where the effects of that history are still very much present. They also ask how we are supposed to live in these times when so many terrible things are happening beyond our control.’
‘The poems often start with something I have noticed on my walks, in my reading, or on the land on a certain day. They can be about something as small as a gum leaf or the tattoo on a person’s arm.’
Judge Chris Tse praised this ‘remarkable’ collection for its depth and curiosity:
‘From my first read I was drawn into its meditations on the connections between people, the environment and art. It shows how poetry and art can uncover new understandings of the world and our own circumstances, even when the speaker doubts that any of it is useful in a world speeding towards catastrophe. Jenner’s sensitive engagement reminds us that poetry can be found in the smallest moments – moments intertwined with a much larger tapestry of human experience.’
The shortlisted collections for the 2025 Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award were: ‘Reclamation’ by Nicola Thorstensen, ‘Nighttime Gardener’ by Bronte Heron, ‘The Night of Infinite Bliss’ by Jordan Hamel and ‘We Are Here’ by Michelle Elvy.
Lynn Jenner’s winning manuscript will be published in 2026 by Otago University Press. The award announcement and Chris Tse’s full judge’s report can be read in Landfall Tauraka 250: Spring 2025.