Top, L to R: Peter Gizzi (photo © Rick Myers); Karen McCarthy Woolf (photo © Yasmine Akim); Carl Phillips (photo © Reston Allen); Gboyega Odubanjo (photo © Asare Debrah); Katrina Porteous (photo © Tony Griffiths) Bottom, L to R: Hannah Copley (photo © Nick Dennis); Gustav Parker Hibbett (photo © Abbie McNeice); Rachel Mann (photo © KTPhotography); Helen Farish (photo © Phyllis Christopher); Raymond Antrobus (photo © Chantal Lawrie)
We are thrilled to announce the T. S. Eliot Prize 2024 Shortlist, chosen by judges Mimi Khalvati (Chair), Anthony Joseph and Hannah Sullivan from 187 poetry collections submitted by British and Irish publishers. The eclectic list comprises seasoned poets, two debuts, two second collections, and two previously shortlisted poets from both long-established, and small independent presses.
Raymond Antrobus, Signs, Music (Picador Poetry
Hannah Copley, Lapwing (Pavilion Poetry / Liverpool University Press)
Helen Farish, The Penny Dropping (Bloodaxe Books)
Peter Gizzi, Fierce Elegy (Penguin Poetry)
Gustav Parker Hibbett, High Jump as Icarus Story (Banshee Press)
Rachel Mann, Eleanor Among the Saints (Carcanet Press)
Gboyega Odubanjo, Adam (Faber & Faber)
Carl Phillips, Scattered Snows, to the North (Carcanet Press)
Katrina Porteous, Rhizodont (Bloodaxe Books)
Karen McCarthy Woolf, Top Doll (Dialogue Books)
Chair of the judging panel Mimi Khalvati said:
Our shortlisted poets are wonderfully diverse in style, theme and idiom, embracing myth, pop culture, sport, faith, trans identity, AI – a gamut of present and past life. Throughout these collections runs a strong strain of elegy, responding to our dark times with testaments of loss and grief. There is also humour, intimacy, joy and energy – poems to make you well up, to inspire you to write, and most of all to invite you to read.
The hugely popular T. S. Eliot Prize 2024 Shortlist Readings will take place on Sunday 12 January 2025 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 will also be available.
The winner of the 2024 Prize will be announced at the Award Ceremony on Monday 13 January 2025, where the winner and the shortlisted poets will be presented with their cheques. The winner will receive a cheque for £25,000.
To be first to T. S. Eliot Prize news, sign up to our e-newsletter. Each week, we bring you essential background on the shortlisted poets, including links to videos, readers’ notes, reviews and selected poems, which are free to download and share. For your weekly update, please subscribe.
The T. S. Eliot Prize, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, is run by The T. S. Eliot Foundation. It is the most valuable prize in British poetry – the winning poet will receive a cheque for £25,000 and the shortlisted poets are each presented with cheques for £1,500. 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 our winners and their collections, visit our Shortlist 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.
Last year’s winner was Jason Allen-Paisant for his collection Self-Portrait as Othello (Carcanet Press); the judges were Paul Muldoon (Chair), Sasha Dugdale and Denise Saul. Don’t miss Jason Allen-Paisant’s reading with guest Eve Esfandiari-Denney at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival.
