If you enter the newly minted International Poetry Prize recently announced by the University of Canberra, your words - chosen correctly and placed poetically - could be worth $15,000.

But, as anyone who has ever appreciated a poem knows, there's as much complex mystery in understanding poetry as there is in creating it.

So pity the panel of leading poets whose task it will be to sift through the prize entries, many of which are expected to be submitted from overseas as news of the prize - one of the world's largest for a single poem - spreads.

University vice-chancellor Stephen Parker, who is funding the prize, said it was an important step for the university, which recently established an International Poetry Studies Institute to further understanding and knowledge of the art.

"I'm keen to show that the university supports a whole range of different creative activity, so I think it's an important statement by the university as well," he said.

And while he is an avid supporter of the arts, he said he had a "personal commitment" to poetry, and had long harboured a dream of setting up such a prize.

Research professor at the institute Jen Webb, a published poet, said the prize would raise Canberra's profile and contribute enormously to the institute's work.

The institute won an Australian Research Council grant to explore how the creativity used in poetry could be applied to other areas, and the potential entries to the prize would widen the field of research.

"It gives us access to an international pool of fine poets," she said. "It will allow us to publish an anthology of excellent poetry each year, which is a lovely, terrific contribution to the whole world of poetry. It's not that easy to put out anthologies and this will facilitate it."

She said she expected the prize to start with more entries from Australia initially, but that its reputation would grow over the coming years.

And while the judging panel, made up of Australian poets Jennifer Harrison, Brook Emery and Judith Beveridge and British poet Philip Gross, had a tough job ahead, she said the experience of seeing so much new, unpublished work for the first time would be a thrill.

"It is hard working through those poems to select them, but it is a genuine pleasure; it's a fabulous charge to be reading closely a number of really fabulous pieces of work," she said.

The winner will receive $15,000, with $5000 for the runner-up and the shortlisted works will be published in an anthology.

Entries, which close on May 30, 2014, must be previously unpublished poems in English and up to 50 lines in length. For more information about the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor's International Poetry Prize, visit canberra.edu.au/vcpoetryprize.