Our Readers’ notes on the 2021 Shortlist help individual readers and poetry reading groups read their way through the shortlist, with poems, discussion ideas, background on the poets, reviews of their books and suggestions for other poets you might enjoy.

Raymond Antrobus – All the Names Given (Picador)

Kayo Chingonyi – A Blood Condition (Chatto & Windus)

Selima Hill – Men Who Feed Pigeons (Bloodaxe)

Victoria Kennefick – Eat Or We Both Starve (Carcanet)

Hannah Lowe – The Kids (Bloodaxe)

Michael Symmons Roberts – Ransom (Cape Poetry)

Daniel Sluman – single window (Nine Arches Press)

Joelle Taylor – C+nto & Othered Poems (The Westbourne Press)

Jack Underwood – A Year in the New Life (Faber)

Kevin Young – Stones (Cape Poetry)

All ten sets of Readers’ Notes