Shortlist for Pollard Poetry Prize announced

Posted on: 12 March 2026

The shortlist for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize 2026 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 2026. 

The shortlisted publications are: 

• Dane Holt:  Father's Father's Father (Carcanet Press)
• Michael Mullen: goonie (Corsair)
• Karen Downes-Barton:  Minx  (Chatto and Windus)
• Abu Bakr Sadiq: Leaked Footages (University of Nebraska Press)
• Darby Price: All The Lands We Inherit (Black Lawrence Press)

Announcing the 2026 shortlist, chair of the judging panel, Professor Eoin McNamee, Director of the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre said:  

“Along with fellow judges Seán Hewitt and Una Mannion it has once again been a privilege to read first collections of poetry and to choose a shortlist for this year’s Pollard International Poetry Prize. We found ourselves beguiled, held to our task by invention, by poetic languages that are lyric, political, urgent, striking a balance between the ethereal and the worldly. We commend these poets to you.” 

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); Gustav Parker Hibbett (2025).

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