Shortlist for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize announced

Posted on: 24 February 2022

The shortlist for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize 2022 has been announced today [Thursday, Feb 24^th] by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre. This is the fourth year of the prize, which is 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 College on 12th April, 2022.

The shortlisted publications are:

• Threa Almontaser The Wild Fox of Yemen (Picador)
• Gail McConnell The Sun Is Open (Penned in the Margins)
• Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe Auguries of a Minor God (Faber)
• Alice Hiller Bird of Winter (Liverpool University Press)
• Ralf Webb Rotten Days in Late Summer (Penguin)
• Daisy Lafarge Life Without Air (Granta)

Announcing the 2022 shortlist, chair of the judging panel, Professor Eoin McNamee, Director of the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre, said:

This was an exceptional shortlist chosen from 52 entries. Each of the six books are vibrant, lit from within. Ranging across the wounded terrains of the heart, of the body, of broken lands, each of the six authors brings hard won beauty and insight to the surface. You come away from these books enriched and emboldened in the cause of poetry. It was a privilege for myself and fellow judges Philip Coleman, Vona Groarke and Alice Lyons to read and debate this work.