Archive Poetry Prize
THE SEAMUS HEANEY CENTRE FOR POETRY
PRIZE FOR FIRST FULL COLLECTION 2014
Supported by Glucksman Ireland House,
New York University
The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast, is delighted to announce the winner of the fourth Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry.
The Prize is awarded annually to the writer of the best first collection published in the UK or Ireland in the preceding year and is awarded with support from Glucksman Ireland House at New York University. Glucksman Ireland House, the Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies at NYU supports the award through generous funding in honour of Thomas Quinlan, a third generation Irish-American teacher and educator.
The prize was awarded at the Student Reading of the Poetry Summer School which took place Thursday, 26 June.
The winner of this year’s Prize is
Tara Bergin
for her book
This is Yarrow
(Carcanet Press).
The Seamus Heaney Prize for Poetry for 2014 was a cheque for £1,000. In addition the winner is invited to read at Glucksman Ireland House at New York University for the third annual Tom Quinlan Lecture in Poetry, provided with travel, accommodation, and an honorarium. The lecture takes place in the autumn 2014.
The Chairman of the judges this year was Professor Ciaran Carson, Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. His fellow judges were Professor Paul Farley from the University of Lancaster and Professor Paula Meehan, the current incumbent of the Ireland Chair of Poetry.
The judges said of the competition, “It was a year when there were outstanding entries for this prize, powerful collections that made the judges' decision very difficult. It was an especially strong year for storytellers: the narrative impulse was the central energy in many of the collections. Through all the sifting, calibrating and circling round it was Tara Bergin's book This is Yarrow that held us in thrall. The poems are suffused with the sense of the poet moving way outside the known or knowing world to bring back strange and urgent news; poetry that once we hear it, we wonder how we ever did without it.”
The Seamus Heaney Centre Prize was inaugurated to celebrate the work of the Heaney Centre, and to honour its founding poet. The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry is a focal point for creativity in Ireland and is recognised as an international centre of creative and research excellence in the field of literature. Central to the Centre’s ethos is the encouragement of emerging talent.
Mrs Gerry Hellawell, email: g.hellawell@qub.ac.uk, tel: +44 (0)2890971070.
PRESS RELEASE
THE SEAMUS HEANEY CENTRE FOR POETRY
PRIZE FOR FIRST FULL COLLECTION 2014
Supported by Glucksman Ireland House,
New York University
The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast, is delighted to announce the shortlist for the fifth Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry. The Prize is awarded annually to the writer of the best first collection published in the UK or Ireland in the preceding year.
The shortlist for this year’s Prize is:
Tara Bergin, This is Yarrow (Carcanet Press)
Malika Booker, Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press)
Paula Cunningham, Heimlich's Manoeuvre (smith/doorstop)
Hannah Lowe, Chick (Bloodaxe Books)
Rory Waterman, Tonight the Summer's Over (Carcanet Press)
The winner will be announced during the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Summer School, 23-27 June 2014. The Seamus Heaney Prize for Poetry for 2014 will be £1,000. In addition the winner will be invited to read at Glucksman Ireland House at New York University for the annual Tom Quinlan Lecture in Poetry, provided with travel, accommodation, and an honorarium. (http://irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu/page/home).
The Chairman of the judges this year was Professor Ciaran Carson, Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. His fellow judges were Professor Paul Farley, Lancaster University and Professor Paula Meehan, Ireland Chair of Poetry. They said, "This year's Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for a First Collection of Poems attracted a large number of powerful and accomplished submissions. The books sent for consideration displayed in abundance the health, wealth and variety of the art of poetry as it is currently practised in these islands, and the judges found the process of arriving at a shortlist exhilarating and difficult in equal measure. We congratulate the authors of these books, and the presses for making them public."
About Glucksman Ireland House
Located in the heart of Greenwich Village, Glucksman Ireland House is New York University's Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies and one of the top-ranked academic Irish Studies programs in the United States. Through innovative undergraduate and graduate academic curricula and extensive public programming, it provides access to the best in Irish and Irish-American culture. With faculty in Irish and Irish-American literature, history, music, language, and cultural studies, Glucksman Ireland House NYU provides its students and the community with an integrated approach to understanding the arts and humanities that represent Ireland and Irish-America’s past, present, and future.
Further Information
For further information, contact Anne Solari at Glucksman Ireland House NYU at anne.solari@nyu.edu or +1 (212) 998-3952; or, Mrs Gerry Hellawell at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queens University, Belfast, at g.hellawell@qub.ac.uk or +44(0)2890971070.
Winner Announced
THE SEAMUS HEANEY CENTRE FOR POETRY
PRIZE FOR FIRST FULL COLLECTION 2015
Supported by Glucksman Ireland House,
New York University
The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast, is delighted to announce the winner of the fifth Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry.
The Prize is awarded annually to the writer of the best first collection published in the UK or Ireland in the preceding year and is awarded with support from Glucksman Ireland House at New York University. Glucksman Ireland House, the Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies at NYU supports the award through generous funding in honour of Thomas Quinlan, a third generation Irish-American teacher and educator.
The prize was awarded at the Student Reading of the Poetry Summer School which took place Thursday, 26 June.
The winner of this year’s Prize is
FIONA BENSON
for her book
Bright Travellers
(Cape Poetry)
The Seamus Heaney Prize for Poetry for 2015 was a cheque for £5,000. In addition the winner is invited to read at Glucksman Ireland House at New York University for the fourth annual Tom Quinlan Lecture in Poetry, provided with travel, accommodation, and an honorarium. The lecture takes place in the autumn 2015.
The Chairman of the judges this year was Professor Ciaran Carson, Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. His fellow judges were Dr Alan Gillis and Dr Miriam Gamble.
The chair of the judges said of the competition, “My colleagues Miriam Gamble, Alan Gillis and I were most impressed by the strikingly high standard of this year’s entries. We agreed that the shortlist of five could easily have been extended by another two or three books without any significant drop in quality. These are books of originality, flourish, vernacular energy, playful erudition, and formal skill; in their very different approaches they express a searching communal and political engagement, blended with an intensely expressed individuality. We are delighted that the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize should have attracted such a range of seriously intelligent and formally accomplished voices; and we are sure that Seamus himself, always such a generous champion of emerging talent, would be equally delighted were he with us now.
‘It was a difficult and delicate business to choose an outright winner from such a strong field. But all three judges were unanimous that Fiona Benson deserved the prize for her strikingly assured debut, Bright Travellers. The language shines through in its maturity and finesse, always particular in its renditions of bodily process or spiritual possibility, shimmering alternately with promise and threat. This is a book of quiet, feisty conviction, and we were convinced by it. ‘
The Seamus Heaney Centre Prize was inaugurated to celebrate the work of the Heaney Centre, and to honour its founding poet. The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry is a focal point for creativity in Ireland and is recognised as an international centre of creative and research excellence in the field of literature. Central to the Centre’s ethos is the encouragement of emerging talent.
The shortlisted runners-up were:
Caoilinn Hughes, Gathering Evidence (Carcanet)
Toby Martinez de las Rivas, Terror (Faber and Faber)
Vidyan Ravinthiran, Grun-tu-molani (Bloodaxe)
Helen Tookey, Missel-Child (Carcanet)
Mrs Gerry Hellawell, email: g.hellawell@qub.ac.uk,
tel: +44 (0)2890971070.
THE SEAMUS HEANEY CENTRE FOR POETRY
PRIZE FOR FIRST FULL COLLECTION 2015
Supported by Glucksman Ireland House, New York University
The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast, is delighted to announce the shortlist for the sixth Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry. The Prize is awarded annually to the writer of the best first collection published in the UK or Ireland in the preceding year.
The shortlist for this year’s Prize is:
Fiona Benson, Bright Travellers (Cape Poetry)
Caoilinn Hughes, Gathering Evidence (Carcanet)
Toby Martinez de las Rivas, Terror (Faber and Faber)
Vidyan Ravinthiran, Grun-tu-molani (Bloodaxe)
Helen Tookey, Missel-Child (Carcanet)
The winner will be announced during the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Summer School, 22-26 June 2015. The Seamus Heaney Prize for Poetry for 2015 will be £5,000. In addition the winner will be invited to read at Glucksman Ireland House at New York University for the annual Tom Quinlan Lecture in Poetry, provided with travel, accommodation, and an honorarium. (http://irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu/page/home).
About Glucksman Ireland House
Located in the heart of Greenwich Village, Glucksman Ireland House is New York University's Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies and one of the top-ranked academic Irish Studies programs in the United States. Through innovative undergraduate and graduate academic curricula and extensive public programming, it provides access to the best in Irish and Irish-American culture. With faculty in Irish and Irish-American literature, history, music, language, and cultural studies, Glucksman Ireland House NYU provides its students and the community with an integrated approach to understanding the arts and humanities that represent Ireland and Irish-America’s past, present, and future.
Further Information
For further information, contact Anne Solari at Glucksman Ireland House NYU at anne.solari@nyu.edu or +1 (212) 998-3952; or, Mrs Gerry Hellawell at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queens University, Belfast, at g.hellawell@qub.ac.uk or +44(0)2890971070
THE SEAMUS HEANEY CENTRE FOR POETRY
PRIZE FOR FIRST FULL COLLECTION 2015
Supported by Glucksman Ireland House, New York University
*** Prize increased to £5000 ***
Calling all poets and publishers. Did you have a first collection published between 1 January and 31 December 2014? Yes? Read on.
The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry invites submissions for the Heaney Centre Prize for First Full Collection 2015.
We are grateful for the continued support from Glucksman Ireland House, New York University. Located in the heart of New York's Greenwich Village, Glucksman Ireland House is the centre for Irish Studies at New York University. Glucksman Ireland House also organise weekly public events during the academic year, as well as a monthly traditional Irish music series. See their website http://irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu/page/home
The prize is £5000 and in addition the winner will be invited to give a reading at the Glucksman Ireland House in New York, including travel expenses, three nights’ accommodation and an honorarium of $1000.
The deadline for entries is Monday 20 April 2015. Application Form and Terms and Conditions are available here.
Entry forms and terms and conditions can be downloaded from the Seamus Heaney Centre website at www.qub.ac.uk/heaneycentre and follow the link to Poetry Prize 2015.
Previous winners of the Poetry Prize
Shortlist Press Release 2016
Winner Announced