Jaye Kranz is a poet, writer and documentary audio maker living on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia.
She is the recipient of an Emerging Writers Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: The Cincinnati Review, West Branch, Best of Australian Poems 2024, The Florida Review, Foglifter, The Marrow International Poetry Journal, Frozen Sea and Cordite Poetry Review.
Jumaadi’s 2012 work on paper Open Diary: no. 43 inspired Jaye Kranz’s 60-line submission which was selected by Pulitzer Prize Winner and 2025 Judge, Natalie Diaz.
Pulitzer Prize Winner and 2025 Judge Natalie Diaz’s comments:
Reading the finalist poems for the Plaza Prize was like shining a bright light into my end of winter days. Many of the poems were pulsing and rippling with emotional imagery and powerful ruminations on what it means to be alongside one another in this world, as miraculous beings, despite our wounds and losses. Poetry is a place that can hold what is often seen as incongruent or what we might otherwise fumble or be felled by in our unreasonable world, and I felt I was also held while reading these poems, many of which I will carry with me in the cave behind the cave behind my heart as I make my own way through my hours and days. Gracias for this gift of reading alongside your community of poets and language makers. Let’s all continue to dream strong.
