Hannah Sullivan wins the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry 2018

We are delighted that Hannah Sullivan has been awarded the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry for her debut collection, Three Poems.

After months of reading and deliberation, Sinéad Morrissey (Chair), Daljit Nagra and Clare Pollard chose the winner from a strong shortlist of five women and five men, with five debut collections on this year’s shortlist.

At the award’s presentation, Sinéad Morrissey said of Three Poems:

‘A magnificent debut . . . assured, cool, and anthropological in its focus on a life lived via distinct stages and in discreet contexts. The elasticity of her poetic gift – the sheer range of what she can make language do and say – coupled with formal mastery, ensures we’ll be reading this collection for years to come.’

Morrissey added later:

‘Hannah Sullivan’s Three Poems is an astonishing debut, challenging the parameters of what poetry can do. Her collection stood out even amongst this year’s outstanding and diverse shortlist. Rarely has such a significant poet arrived so fully-formed.

This year’s prize was awarded at a special ceremony at the Wallace Collection in London on Monday 14 January. We were proud to have published four of the shortlisted collections: Us by Zaffar Kunial, Feel Free by Nick Laird, Soho by Richard Scott and Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan.’

Listen to Hannah reading the opening of ‘You, Very Young in New York’

And you can listen to the full poem here