When the first issue of Meanjin Papers was published in Brisbane in 1940, the journal was a slim, eight-page volume of poetry contributed by just four authors, including founding editor Clem Christensen. And although the journal soon swelled to include prose work, fiction, criticism and so on, poetry has always been at the heart of Meanjin. A few years ago we decided that poetry, unlike all the other kinds of writing and artwork we publish, would not have its own section but be dispersed throughout the journal. This seemed right to us, that the poetry in Meanjin would be the ties that bind an issue together, handholds where a reader would be tempted to stay a while in the perfectly contained world of the poem.

Each year Meanjin holds a poetry prize named in honour of Dorothy Porter, which acknowledges the exceptional quality and breadth of the poetry published in this journal. In 2014 the judges of the Meanjin Dorothy Porter Poetry Prize were Andrea Goldsmith and Kristen Henry, who generously gave their time to consider the work of the fifty or so poets whose work was published in Meanjin this year. It gives me great pleasure to announce the winners of the prize for 2014: