The Poetry Book Society has announced the 10 books to be shortlisted for this year’s T S Eliot Prize! The Prize launched in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society’s 40th birthday, and to honour its founding poet.
The ‘world’s top poetry award’ (Louise Jury, the Independent) is awarded annually to the writer of the best new poetry collection published in the UK or Ireland. It is unique as it is always judged by a panel of established poets and it has been described by Sir Andrew Motion as ‘the Prize most poets want to win’.
The Shortlist
Have you read any works by the shortlisted poets? Click on any title to rate and review it, or to add it to your group’s reading list. Not signed up to Reading Groups for Everyone yet? Sign up here.
- Mark Doty – Deep Lane (Cape)
- Tracey Herd – Not in this World (Bloodaxe)
- Selima Hill – Jutland (Bloodaxe)
- Sarah Howe – Loop of Jade (Chatto & Windus)
- Tim Liardet – The World Before Snow (Carcanet)
- Les Murray – Waiting for the Past (Carcanet)
- Sean O’Brien – The Beautiful Librarians (Picador)
- Don Paterson – 40 Sonnets (Faber)
- Rebecca Perry – Beauty/Beauty (Bloodaxe)
- Claudia Rankine – Citizen: An American Lyric (Penguin)
Chair of judges, Pascale Petit, said:
“This is a fantastic year for poetry, with the highest amount of entries submitted in the history of the prize, and an exceptional number of outstanding collections, including many dazzling debuts. This made our task of choosing the shortlist tricky – many that didn’t make it are books we love. But we were unanimous about our final list, the books my distinguished fellow judges and I picked all awed and excited us with their ambition, verve and technical mastery.”
The winner of the 2015 Prize will be announced at the T S Eliot Prize Award Ceremony on Monday 11 January 2016. Last year’s winner was David Harsent for his collection Fire Songs (Faber).
Get involved
Find out more about the Prize on the Poetry Book Society website or follow Poetry Book Society on Twitter.
