Karen Downs-Barton wins 2026 Pollard International Poetry Prize

Posted on: 27 April 2026

Karen Downs-Barton has been announced as the winner of the 2026 John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize for her debut poetry collection Minx.
 
The prize is awarded annually for an outstanding debut collection of poetry in the English language. Valued at €10,000, it is sponsored by the John Pollard Foundation and administered by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre in the School of English at Trinity.
 
Based in Wiltshire, UK, Karen Downs-Barton’s debut poetry collection Minx was published in 2025. The collection is a lyrical evocation of her Anglo-Romani childhood.

 
Responding to winning the prize Karen Downs-Barton said: “When I heard Minx had been shortlisted for the John Pollard International Poetry Prize I was overwhelmed. To have won? I haven’t digested that yet. I can only describe it viscerally – my heart finds itself too fast and too large to be confined by these ribs. It will take time to put my feelings into more suitable words.
 
“I’d like to thank Professor Eoin McNamee, Seán Hewitt and Una Mannion for their generosity in spending time with Minx, and the personal narrative driving the collection. Too often that story was hidden or met an elective social blindness. I wanted Minx to challenge literary tropes of marginalised lives, especially of women struggling to hold families together, by representing from inside those experiences. I realise that the desire to create poems that, to borrow Anne Carsons phrase, ‘left the reader changed’ was a lot to ask of a collection.
 
“Writing Minx was a labour of love sustained by the companionship of many wonderful poets and early readers. I’d like to thank those fellow dreamers across the page and my academic supervisors Ruth Padel, Anthony Joseph, and Sarah Howe, for their friendship and wisdom. Lastly, and most especially, I would like to thank Dr Linda Doyle, Stephen Vernon and the John Pollard Foundation for making this overwhelming honour possible.”
 
Announcing the 2026 winner, chair of the judging panel, Professor Eoin McNamee, Director of the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre, said: “Along with fellow judges Una Mannion and Seán Hewitt I’m delighted to announce Karen Downs-Barton as the 2026 winner of the John Pollard International Poetry Prize.
 
“Minx is an extraordinary first collection. An Anglo-Romani childhood is evoked, worlds of lost children and found languages are fallen through. It is a reminder of the wondrous reach of poetry, that it can both still the heart and affirm it.”
 
The patron of the John Pollard Foundation Stephen Vernon, who named the foundation in memory of his grandfather John Pollard, said: “I am delighted that the judges have selected Karen Downs Barton as the winner of the 2026 John Pollard International Poetry Prize. I’ve greatly enjoyed reading this remarkable collection and the honesty that Downs-Barton brings to her debut book Minx.
 
“It’s an honour to welcome her to the distinguished group of John Pollard Prize winners. Sincere thanks to Professor Eoin McNamee and the judging panel for their thoughtful work and careful consideration in recognising such a deserving winner.”
 
 More about Karen Downs-Barton:
 
Karen Downs-Barton is an award-winning neurodivergent poet from an Anglo-Romani background. Her debut collection, Minx (Chatto and Windus / Penguin, 2025), is a memoire in poetry that has featured on BBC Radio 4's The Verb. Her pamphlet, Didicoy (Smith|Doorstop) won the 2022 International Poetry Book and Pamphlet competition was a 2023 Poetry Book Society recommendation.
 
Karen has headlined Ledbury Festival, Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival, Deptford Literature Festival and Edinburgh International Book Festival. Poetry from her PhD thesis exploring the development of identity through experimental and multilingual poetry won the Cosmo Davenport-Hines poetry competition. Karen has written for the i newspaper and her poetry has appeared in Ink, Sweat, and Tears, The North, Wild Court, Tears in the Fence, Rattle amongst others, is widely anthologised and has been translated into Spanish, Russian and Farsi.

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