English PEN Announces the Heaney Prize’s First Poetry Shortlist

In News by Porter Anderson

A shortlist of six poetry titles has been announced for the new PEN Heaney Prize from Irish PEN and the UK’s English PEN.

Seamus Heaney. Image: English PEN

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

A New Award in the English PEN Portfolio
It’s news of yet another new award contest from the United Kingdom.

Announced today (November 5), English PEN, together with Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and the estate of the late Seamus Heaney, announces the shortlist for the inaugural PEN Heaney Prize.

The honor recognizes a single volume of poetry by one author, published in the United Kingdom or Ireland, of outstanding literary merit that engages with the impact of cultural or political events on human conditions or relationships.

The winner of this year’s PEN Heaney Prize will be announced on December 2 at a ceremony held in the Great Hall at Queen’s University Belfast, in partnership with the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s. Tickets to the ceremony are free and available to book here.

The PEN Heaney Prize Shortlist
  • Isdal by Susannah Dickey (Picador Poetry)
  • The Coming Thing by Martina Evans (Carcanet Poetry)
  • Hyena! by Fran Lock (Poetry Bus Press)
  • Blood Feather by Patrick McGuinness (Cape Poetry)
  • We Play Here by Dawn Watson (Granta Poetry)
  • A Tower Built Downwards by Yang Lian, translated by Brian Holton (Bloodaxe Books)

The inaugural PEN Heaney Prize jurors are Nick Laird, Paula Meehan, Shazea Quraishi, with Catherine Heaney joining them as non-voting chair and representing the estate of Seamus Heaney.

More from Publishing Perspectives on book and publishing awards is here, more on the United Kingdom’s publishing market is here, and more on poetry is here.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

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Porter Anderson has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.