Two Irish poets on Eliot prize shortlist

TWO IRISH poets have made it on to the shortlist for this year’s TS Eliot Prize for Poetry

TWO IRISH poets have made it on to the shortlist for this year’s TS Eliot Prize for Poetry. The list for the award, one of the most prestigious a poet can receive, includes Cork-born Eiléan Ní Chuillenáin, for her new collection, The Sun-fish (Gallery Press), and Northern Ireland poet Sinéad Morrissey for Through the Square Window (Carcanet).

The winner of the £15,000 award will be announced in London in January at a ceremony at which the presentation will be made by Valerie Eliot, widow of T S Eliot.

Announcing the shortlist, poet Simon Armitage said he and his fellow judges – Colette Bryce and Penelope Shuttle – believed “this to be the most wide-ranging shortlist for a poetry prize for a good number of years, one which reflects the scope, breadth and vitality of contemporary poetry”.

Joining the two Irish poets on the list are: Fred D'Aguiar ( Continental Shelf); Jane Draycott ( Over); Philip Gross ( The Water Table); Sharon Olds ( One Secret Thing); Alice Oswald ( Weeds Wild Flowers); Christopher Reid ( A Scattering); George Szirtes ( The Burning of the Books and Other Poems) and Hugo Williams ( West End Final).

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Ní Chuilleanáin is a lecturer in Trinity College Dublin and has published several critically acclaimed books of poetry. She is a founding editor of the literary magazine Cyphers and a member of Aosdána.

Morrissey was born in Portadown, Co Armagh, and is regarded as one of the most accomplished of younger Irish poets. In 2007 she received a Lannan Literary Fellowship.

Several Irish poets are among previous winners of the TS Eliot prize, including Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon and Ciarán Carson.