First Collection Poetry Prize
The First Collection Poetry Prize celebrates the work of the Seamus Heaney Centre and honours Heaney himself. It is awarded to a writer whose first, full collection has been published in the preceding year, by a UK or Ireland-based publisher. The winner receives £5,000.
The Poetry Prize is awarded as part of the Seamus Heaney Legacy Project, a joint 10-year fund between Queen's University Belfast and the Arts Council for Northern Ireland, generously supported by the Atlantic Philanthropies.
Entries for the 2025 Prize will open in January.
Previous Winners
Image: Sumita Chakraborty, Winner of the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2021
Previous Winners include:
2023 - Mark Pajak, Slide (Jonathan Cape)
2022 - Victoria Kennefick, Eat Or We Both Starve (Carcanet)
2021 - Sumita Chakraborty, Arrow (Carcanet)
2020 - Laura Scott, So Many Rooms (Carcanet)
2019 - Ned Denny, Unearthly Toys: Poems and Masks (Carcanet)
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