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).
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.