Jane Clarke & Abigail Parry on T S Eliot Prize 2023 Shortlist

 

Two titles published by Bloodaxe Books were shortlisted for the prestigious T S Eliot Prize, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2023. The prize is awarded annually to the writer of the best new poetry collection published in the UK and Ireland. The ten-strong shortlist was announced on 3 October 2023, chosen from 186 poetry collections submitted by British and Irish publishers. Jason Allen-Paisant was announced as winner at a ceremony in London on 15 January 2024.

Irish poet Jane Clarke's third full collection A Change in the Air, published in May, was on the shortlist, together with Abigail Parry's second collection I Think We're Alone Now, which was published in November.  A Change in the Air was also shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2023.

The Judges for the T S Eliot Prize 2023 are: Paul Muldoon (Chair), Sasha Dugdale and Denise Saul.

On behalf of the judges, Paul Muldoon said:

'We are confident that all ten shortlisted titles not only meet the high standards they set themselves but speak most effectively to, and of, their moment. If there’s a single word for that moment it is surely ‘disrupted’, and all these poets properly reflect that disruption. Shot through though they are with images of grief, migration, and conflict, they are nonetheless imbued with energy and joy. The names of some poets will be familiar, others less so; all will find a place in your head and heart.'

The T S Eliot Prize Readings were held at London's Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 14 January 2024, and the winner was announced at a ceremony at the Wallace Collection on the evening of 15 January 2024.  The winning poet receives £25,000 and all shortlisted poets receive £1,500. The T S Eliot Prize is the most valuable in British poetry and is the only major poetry prize which is judged solely by established poets.

The winner, Jason Allen-Paisant, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Front Row on Tuesday 16 January 2024.  Listen via BBC Sounds here.

Audio extracts from the T S Eliot Prize Readings at the Southbank Centre were broadcast on BBC Radio 3's The Verb on Friday 19 January, introduced by Ian McMillan, who also hosted the event at the Royal Festival Hall on 14 January. Jane Clarke was introduced by Ian McMillan at 21:00 and read her poems 'Dressing My Mother for Her Grandson's Wedding', 'Spalls' and 'June'.  Abigail Parry was introduced at 30:22 and read her poem 'In the dream of the cold restaurant'. Listen via BBC Sounds here.  Scroll down to see a video of the T S Eliot Prize Readings.

Full details of all the shortlisted books are on the T S Eliot Prize website here.  

Specially commissioned videos of interviews with and readings by the shortlisted poets are on the T S Eliot Prize YouTube channel here. 

All ten shortlisted books have been reviewed by John Field, with reviews posted on the T S Eliot Prize website and featured in weekly e-newsletters along with Readers' Notes by Julia Bird.

This year, alongside the usual Readers’ Notes, the T S Eliot Prize and the Poetry School collaborated on a set of Writers’ Notes for the shortlisted collections. Abigail Parry’s piece about her creative process went online on 10 January 2024 and can be read here.  Jane Clarke's piece was published online with the Poetry School a month earlier and can be read here.

Jane Clarke talks about her work and the theme of change that runs through her collection A Change in the Air.

Jane reads 'Pit Ponies of Glendasan', the poem which gave the title to her third collection A Change in the Air.

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T S ELIOT PRIZE VIDEO REVIEWS

Gabrielle Tse reviews Abigail Parry's I Think We're Alone Now for the T S Eliot Prize

Gabrielle Tse reviews Abigail Parry's I Think We're Alone Now, which is shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize 2023. Gabrielle took part in the Young Critics Scheme, a joint project from the T. S. Eliot Prize and The Poetry Society. Ten 18-25 year olds were asked to review the texts on this year’s T. S. Eliot Prize shortlist, following a series of online workshops.

 

Evelyn Byrne reviews Jane Clarke's A Change in the Air for the T S Eliot Prize

Evelyn Byrne reviews Jane Clarke's A Change in the Air.  Evelyn is one of the ten Young Critics recruited to review the books shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize 2023. A partnership programme between the T S Eliot Prize and The Poetry Society's Young Poets Network.

'Held together / by gravity and friction, hearted by handfuls of spalls,' A Change in the Air is tightly packed, taking shards of pain and piecing them together to form a cohesive collection which is rooted in tenderness. Exploring what it means to connect with each other and our surroundings against a shifting cultural background, Clarke's poems are filled with quiet moments of humanity and a constant respect for her subject matter ... Since Clarke describes her work as 'word music,' it is fitting the way this describes the collection itself. A Change in the Air is made up of six sequences and darts like the cormorant between ideas. Closing with powerful images that encapsulate the content, these poems linger like the disruption of water in the reader's mind ... Considering the scope of this collection, it could easily become disconnected, but instead the reader is continuously grounded by that which surrounds us: neighbours, rivers, and the resilient heather. Across both time and place, Clarke shows us that taking care of the land is taking care of each other, is taking care of ourselves. With its ambiguous title, A Change in the Air is asking us to engage with what that means as our environmental situation changes.' - Evelyn Byrne

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Jane Clarke is pictured in The Guardian's piece on the 2023 T S Eliot Prize shortlist here.

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Jane Clarke’s third collection A Change in the Air is far-reaching and yet precisely rooted in time and place. In luminous language her poems explore how people, landscape and culture shape us. Voices of the past and present reverberate with courage and resilience in the face of poverty, prejudice, war and exile and the everyday losses of living. Across six sequences these intimate poems of unembellished imagery accrue power and resonance in what is essentially a book of love poems to our beautiful, fragile world. A Change in the Air was longlisted for the Laurel Prize 2023 and shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection and the T S Eliot Prize 2023.

A Change in the Air follows two previous collections from Jane Clarke. Her 2019 second collection When the Tree Falls was shortlisted for three national Irish poetry prizes, the Pigott Poetry Prize 2020, the Irish Times Poetry Now Award and the Farmgate Cafe National Poetry Award 2020, as well as being longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020. Her debut collection The River (2015) was the first poetry book to be shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize.  Jane Clarke grew up on a farm in Co. Roscommon, and now lives near Glenmalure, Co. Wicklow. 

[03 October 2023]

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