October 13, 2022, 12:59pm
The T. S. Eliot Prize, the prestigious literary prize that honors new poetry collections in the UK, has announced its shortlist of 10 books.
Judges Jean Sprackland, Hannah Lowe and Roger Robinson determined the shortlist from a record submission pool of 201 books; each of the poets on the shortlist will receive £1,500 and the winner will receive £25,000. The winner will be announced on January 16, 2023.
Sprackland, the chair of the judging committee, called the shortlisted books “shapeshifting” in their approach to language:
The ten shortlisted books are unflinching in their explorations of love and grief, brutality and desire. They are alive with insects and angels, psychedelic plants and deep-sea fish; and haunted by the ghosts of Caravaggio and Daniel O’Connell. The English of these books is supple and shapeshifting, inflected with Yoruba, Newry street dialect, and the rhythms of Caribbean speech. These are books that thrilled, surprised, and struck us to the heart.
Here are the shortlisted books:
Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Quiet (Faber & Faber)
Fiona Benson, Ephemeron (Cape Poetry)
Jemma Borg, Wilder (Pavilion Poetry/Liverpool University Press)
Philip Gross, The Thirteenth Angel (Bloodaxe Books)
Anthony Joseph, Sonnets for Albert (Bloomsbury Poetry)
Zaffar Kunial, England’s Green (Faber & Faber)
Mark Pajak, Slide (Cape Poetry)
James Conor Patterson, bandit country (Picador Poetry)
Denise Saul, The Room Between Us (Pavilion Poetry/Liverpool University Press)
Yomi Ṣode, Manorism (Penguin Poetry)
Congratulations to the shortlisted poets!