The Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize is awarded to a writer whose first full collection has been published in the preceding year, by a UK or Ireland-based publisher. The winning writer receives £5,000 and is invited to participate in the Seamus Heaney Centre’s busy calendar of literary events.

The 2024 Shortlist includes:

Cowboy, by Kandace Siobhan Walker (Cheerio Poetry)

Crisis Actor, by Declan Ryan (Faber)

Before We Go Any Further, by Tristram Fane Saunders (Carcanet)

Swimming Between Islands, by Charlotte Eichler (Carcanet)

No Man's Land, by David Nash (Dedalus Press)

This year’s judges are Professor Nick Laird, poet and Seamus Heaney Professor of Poetry at Queen’s University; Professor of English and Creative Writing at Trinity University, Texas, Jenny Browne, poet and Fulbright Scholar; and Dr Stephen Sexton, poet and lecturer in Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Speaking ahead of the award ceremony, Professor Nick Laird said: "All three judges were delighted at the standard of the debuts submitted this year. The dazzling books that made the shortlist are different in kind but all insist on taking the world on their own terms, and refuse received notions in order to construct their own authority. We were knocked out by the integrity of these poets’ voices, and it’s genuinely heartening to see the art in such good shape."

The winning and shortlisted writers will read at an event at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast on Thursday 27 June, as part of the Seamus Heaney Poetry Summer School, supported by No Alibis Bookstore. 

Find out more about this year's shortlist here.

Media

Media enquiries to Zara McBrearty at Queen’s Communications Office on +44 (0)28 9097 3259 or email: z.mcbrearty@qub.ac.uk