What helped me win the Jan Dean Members Prize at the Newcastle Poetry Prize

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Having a novel idea

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My poem Broken Vietnamese is adapted from a personal essay that was never published (long

story). I knew that my story of navigating my Vietnamese identity, growing up in Newcastle in the

80s, and having a strong sense of my bisexual identity despite a strict Catholic-Vietnamese

background could make for a unique series of sonnets.

The poem could not have been written in my 20s, 30s, and maybe even my early 40s. It’s a personal

poem that also contains a lot of literary and academic knowledge I have built up over the years,

along with 13 years of therapy.

I wrote it as if it were the first and last poem I would write.

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Reading a lot of poems

In some ways I am new to poetry, in other ways I am not.

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Broken Vietnamese is probably my tenth poem (give or take a couple), but I had absorbed poetry

through almost three decades of reading, researching, writing about poetry, as both a scholar and

avid lover of the form. My honours and PhD theses, and most of my postdoc project (which are all

published), were on poets.

Still, it’s a steep learning curve to move from writing about poetry to writing poetry. But, if nothing

else, academia has taught me resilience and persistence. Ever since I decided that poetry would

become my vocation in the second half of 2025, I have been buying a ton of poetry books, mostly by

Australian poets, as I was more familiar with contemporary American poets. I spend a lot of my

spare time reading, thinking about, and writing/editing poems, just as I did with my academic writing

when I was no longer working as a paid academic but as an honorary research fellow.

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Getting brutal feedback

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A few months ago, I got in touch with my poet friends (I realised I knew quite a few!) and told them

of my intentions to move from academic writing to poetry. I lucked out when I found out that my

friend and collaborator, Hannah McCann, also wrote poetry after we were both shortlisted for the

Poetry d’Amour Poetry Prize (which she ended up winning!). She is an astute reader—in fact, once

I’d sent sections to friends for comment and thought Broken Vietnamese was finally in good shape, I

sent it to her and she tore it a new one with extensive in-line feedback. Her feedback was brutal yet

necessary. Without Hannah I would not have been able to accelerate my learning the way I

have—she’s helped shave a couple of years off my progress. However, we are both from academia,

are used to peer feedback, and respect each other enough to not take offence.

Her main feedback: only include what is essential, every word should count, show more than tell,

avoid cliches/banal images.

 

At the awards ceremony, one of the judges also took me aside and gave me further advice on

improving the poem.

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My experience of the awards ceremony

I was only asked to read at the ceremony a few days in advance—I had already indicated that I

would be attending. I was intending to attend since it would give me an opportunity to revisit my old

hometown, attend the writers festival, and meet the judges and other poets.

Reading one’s work to a group of poets and poetry lovers is a wonderful feeling—it can get you

noticed, especially if you allow your personality and sense of humour to shine. I have been doing

Toastmasters for years, which has built up my confidence with public speaking. Even so, it still took

me a minute or two to settle my nerves after the initial shock of winning a national prize. Introducing

the poem as well as each of the six sonnets was useful for providing context and adding some

appropriate humour. People love to laugh, even if the content is sad.

 

Photo credit: Eunice Andrada