The T. S. Eliot Prize and The Poetry Society are delighted to announce the cohort for the fifth instalment of the Young Critics Scheme. Ten young writers have been selected and will each review, in video form, one of the poetry collections shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize 2026.
Congratulations to this year’s Young Critics: (pictured above, top row, left to right) Aisha Allinson, Caoilfhin Foley, Elsie Hayward, Emmett Coleman, Florence Hall (photo © Adam Grassly); and (bottom row, left to right) Heather Chapman (photo © Henry Colley), Jacob Burgess Rollo, Salma Reda, Tasneem Maher and Zeinab Elnemer.
The Young Critics will take part in a series of series of expert-led workshops and will be invited to attend the T. S. Eliot Prize Shortlist Readings in London. Their video reviews will be posted to T. S. Eliot Prize and The Poetry Society’s YouTube channels, offering fresh perspectives on the shortlisted books before the winner is announced in January 2027.
You can watch the video reviews created by last year’s cohort on our YouTube channel.
This year the scheme received applications from across the UK and Ireland. Michael Sims, Director of the T. S. Eliot Prize, said:
The Young Critics Scheme has been brilliant in inspiring creative responses from young readers and writers who, in turn, inspire wider engagement with the T. S. Eliot Prize Shortlist through imaginative, often dazzling video reviews. We are delighted to be running the programme again this year in partnership with The Poetry Society and Young Poets Network.
Find out more about the Young Critics Scheme in this article celebrating its history.
Young Critics 2026
Aisha Allinson is a writer based in Sheffield, making her way around the North – she recently graduated from Manchester and now works at an indie publisher in Leeds. She is particularly interested in writing that explores queerness, marginality and diasporic identities. Her work has been published in PN Review.
Caoilfhin Foley is an aspiring writer and poet from the southwest of Ireland. She has had work published in Southword, Swerve and Ethereal Magazine among others. She currently writes cultural commentary pieces for The Medusa literary magazine. She received the ‘New Irish Writing Award’ by the Irish Independent in 2024.
Elsie Hayward is a twenty-one-year old poet from rural North Dorset. She is a recent English graduate from Cambridge University. Her poetic pursuits began with becoming a Foyle Young Poet in 2020. Since, she has been published extensively on Young Poets Network, and in anthologies from Live Canon and Never Such Innocence.
Emmett Coleman is a poet based in Dundee and studying at the University of St Andrews. His writing has been published in Propel and Guava Mag and was shortlisted for the 2026 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. He is the founder and editor of his own poetry magazine, Missed the Boat.
Florence Hall is a poet and writer from the Yorkshire Dales. Her poetry has been published with Pulp Poets Press, Popshot, and SINK amongst others. Florence’s work explores queerness, the body, and nature, and she is about to start an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
Heather Chapman is a Durham University student. They’re a Foyle Young Poet, and were shortlisted for the 2025 Poetry Wales Award and 2025 Oxford Poetry Prize. Their work is published in Gutter, Oxford Poetry, And Other Poems and Bloodletter. They have a micro-chapbook published with The Braag.
Jacob Burgess Rollo is a poet from Dorset. His work features in The London Magazine, Oxford Poetry, Magma, Berlin Lit, fourteen poems, The Little Review, And Other Poems, Basket and elsewhere. He was a runner-up in the New Poets Prize 2026.
Salma Reda is a third-year literature student and aspiring cultural critic. Her interests include (but are not limited to) the internet, the eighteenth century, multilingualism, fashion, literary modernism, film, and rap music. She muses on the above on Substack @salmamarreda.
Tasneem Maher is a writer and researcher based in Edinburgh, where she is working on the poetics, politics, and affect of the Palestinian speculative. Her writing has appeared in Poetry Online, VIBE and BAHR Magazine, among others, and she was the 2026 winner of Propel Cambridge Poetry Prize. She is committed to PACBI, and she rejects Zionism everywhere.
Zeinab Elnemer is an Egyptian-born student, poet and illustrator based in Durham, currently working on her multimedia zine ‘The Last of the Cluster’, which explores childhood memories and diaspora. Some of her writing can be found in Afkar9Fikra (2025), while she can be found making cuppas in a volunteer-ran community bookshop.
