We’re delighted to announce the T. S. Eliot Prize 2025 Shortlist, which offers ‘something for everyone’ in collections of ‘great range, suggestiveness and power’.
Judges Michael Hofmann (Chair), Patience Agbabi and Niall Campbell chose the Shortlist from 177 poetry collections submitted by 64 British and Irish publishers. The diverse list comprises seasoned poets, two debuts, two second collections, four previously shortlisted poets and a former winner. Poets hail from the UK, Ireland, St Lucia, Canada and the USA, and publishers include both large, long-established and smaller independent presses.
Gillian Allnutt, Lode (Bloodaxe Books)
Isabelle Baafi, Chaotic Good (Faber & Faber)
Catherine-Esther Cowie, Heirloom (Carcanet Press)
Paul Farley, When it Rained for a Million Years (Picador Poetry)
Vona Groarke, Infinity Pool (The Gallery Press)
Sarah Howe, Foretokens (Chatto Poetry)
Nick Makoha, The New Carthaginians (Penguin Books)
Tom Paulin, Namanlagh (Faber & Faber)
Natalie Shapero, Stay Dead (Out-Spoken Press)
Karen Solie, Wellwater (Picador Poetry)
Michael Hofmann said:
We read over 10,000 pages of poetry, Niall, Patience and I, and are left with just ten titles on our shortlist. But those titles are of great range, suggestiveness and power; from Entebbe to Manitoba, from blocks of text to threads of voice, there is something here for everyone. And that’s the joy of poetry; while it exists things are never entirely hopeless.
For full details on this year’s shortlisted poets and their collections, visit the ‘Current Prize’ webpage.
The hugely popular T. S. Eliot Prize Shortlist Readings, led by MC Ian McMillan, will take place on Sunday 18 January 2026 at 7pm in the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall as part of its literature programme. This is the largest annual poetry event in the UK. Tickets for the Readings are now on sale. A live stream is also available.
The winner of the 2025 Prize will be announced at the Award Ceremony on Monday 19 January 2026. The shortlisted poets will each be presented with cheques for £1,500 and the winner will receive a cheque for £25,000 – the most valuable prize in British poetry.
The T. S. Eliot Prize, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, is run by The T. S. Eliot Foundation. It is the only major poetry prize that is judged purely by established poets. The judging panel is looking for the best new poetry collection written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.
To find out more about the shortlisted poets and their collections, visit our 2025 Prize webpage, where you will also find links to reviews, interviews and Readers’ Notes as we add them. Look out for specially commissioned videos of interviews and poems by all ten shortlisted poets, which will be available to view on the T. S. Eliot Prize YouTube channel, along with past films and recordings.
To be first to hear all the latest T. S. Eliot Prize news, sign up to our e-newsletter. Each week, we will focus on a shortlisted poet and feature free to access and share resources. For your weekly update, please subscribe.
Last year’s winner was Peter Gizzi for his collection Fierce Elegy (Penguin Poetry). Don’t miss a rare UK appearance by Peter Gizzi, who will be reading and in conversation with Ian McMillan, at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival on 17 October, from 4pm.
