Shortlist for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize announced
Posted on: 24 February 2025
The shortlist for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize 2025 has been announced today by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre. This is the seventh year of the prize, awarded annually for an outstanding debut collection of poetry in the English language.
Valued at €10,000, the prize is sponsored by the John Pollard Foundation, and administered by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin.
The patron of the John Pollard Foundation is Stephen Vernon, who named the Foundation in memory of his grandfather, John Pollard. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Trinity in April 2025.
The shortlisted publications are:
- Christine Roseeta Walker, Coco Island (Carcanet Press)
- Gboyega Odubanjo, Adam (Faber and Faber)
- Gustav Parker Hibbett, High Jump as Icarus Story (Banshee Press)
- Scott McKendry, Gub (Corsair Poetry)
- Erin Marie Lynch, Removal Acts (Graywolf Press)
Announcing the 2025 shortlist, chair of the judging panel, Professor Eoin McNamee, Director of the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre said:
“As always it is a privilege for myself and fellow judges Tom Walker and Una Mannion to read and debate the work of these poets in their first collections. There is a rigour, political alertness and attention to beauty to this year's shortlist, a necessary sense of worlds being made anew. The future isn’t assured but sometimes it is in better hands than we think.”
Previous winners of the prize were Hannah Sullivan (2019); Isabel Galleymore (2020); Diane Louie (2021); Gail McConnell (2022); Victoria Adukwei Bulley (2023); Patrick James Errington (2024)
