It's with pleasure that we share the news two of our debut poets have been shortlisted for the 2019 Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize for a first full collection. On the shortlist are Ned Denny with Unearthly Toys: Poems and Masks, and Phoebe Power with Shrines of Upper Austria - a Poetry Book Society Spring 2018 Recommendation which also won the 2018 Forward (Felix Dennis) Prize for Best First Collectionm, a Society of Authors Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the 2018 T. S. Eliot Prize.

The Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize is awarded to a writer whose first full collection has been published in the preceding year, by a UK or Ireland-based publisher. The winning writer receives £5,000 and is invited to read at Glucksman Ireland House at New York University, and at the Irish Art Centre in New York's annual Poetryfest. For this they receive travel, accommodation, and a $1,000 honorarium.

The winner will be announced during the Seamus Heaney Centre’s annual Poetry Summer School, at the Awards Night on Tuesday 2nd July 2019, No Alibis Bookstore, Botanic Avenue, Belfast.

This year’s judges are Professor Nick Laird, Chair of Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre; Professor Edna Longley, critic and Professor Emeritus at Queen’s University Belfast; and Dr Stephen Sexton, poet and lecturer at the Seamus Heaney Centre.

Speaking about the prize Nick Laird, chair of the panel said: 'We were delighted to read such a vigorous group of debut collections this year, and we think this shortlist showcases much of the variety and ingenuity of contemporary poetry.'

Read about the prize and the full shortlist here. Huge congratulations to all the shortlisted poets and publishers, especially to Ned and Phoebe - and good luck to all!