Eric Gregory Awards

Joanne Harris (left) and Lemn Sissay (right) with 2022 Eric Gregory Awards winners Joe Carrick-Varty, Rhiya Pau, Jack Cooper, Daniella Fearon, Courtney Conrad, Maisie Newman and Stephanie Sy-Quia at Southwark Cathedral (photograph © Adrian Pope)
Joanne Harris (left) and Lemn Sissay (right) with 2022 Eric Gregory Awards winners Joe Carrick-Varty, Rhiya Pau, Jack Cooper, Daniella Fearon, Courtney Conrad, Maisie Newman and Stephanie Sy-Quia at Southwark Cathedral (photograph © Adrian Pope)
For a collection by poets under the age of 30

The Eric Gregory Awards, for a collection by poets under the age of 30, were founded in 1960 by the late Dr Eric Gregory for the encouragement of young poets.

Winners of the Eric Gregory Awards are invited to a free solo week residency at Thomas Cottage. Part of a historic farmhouse in the Lake District hamlet of Hartsop, the cottage is in a beautiful location in the rising fells just south of Ullswater. The house is generously reserved for poets who have won an Eric Gregory Award, usually in the January and February following their Award.

Winners of the Eric Gregory Awards will also be invited to have a poem, of the winning collection or from other work, published in the summer edition of Poetry London.

The Eric Gregory Awards are closed for submissions.


The 2024 Eric Gregory Award winners


Will Barnard

Maia Elsner

William Gee

Yanita Georgieva

Nathaniel King

Francis-Xavier Mukiibi

“Reading Eric Gregory submissions is always a mind-expanding experience and this year was no exception. The best manuscripts are utterly up-to-the-minute in their subject matter but, more importantly, in the texture of their poetic lines. Originality stands out a mile and becomes compelling when married with intellectual and emotional rigour. I left our final judges meeting feeling optimistic at seeing poetry breaking new ground and fully meeting the challenges of contemporary life.”

— Gwyneth Lewis, 2024 Eric Gregory Awards judge

If you are interested in buying any of the books shortlisted here, please visit Bookshop.org. A percentage of each sale will go to the Drusilla Harvey Access Fund, providing access grants to help authors attend events, residencies and retreats.


With thanks, the judges of the 2025 Eric Gregory Award:

Caroline Bird

Caroline Bird has seven poetry collections published by Carcanet. Her sixth collection, The Air Year, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2020 and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize and the Costa Prize. Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 TS Eliot Prize and the Ted Hughes Award. A two-time winner of the Foyles Young Poets Award, her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes was published in 2002 when she was 15. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2001 and the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008 and 2010. She was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics. In 2023, she won a Cholmondeley Award for ‘sustained excellence across a body of work.” Her Selected Poems, Rookie, was published in 2022.

Jasmine Gardosi

© Sam Carpenter

Jasmine Gardosi is the Birmingham Poet Laureate and Honorary Doctor of Letters. She is a multiple slam champion, beatboxer, winner of the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry and winner of the Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Performer 2023. Her work exploring identity, LGBTQ issues and mental health has appeared on Button Poetry, at the Tate Modern, Glastonbury Festival, Symphony Hall and BBC. She was featured on Sky Arts’ BAFTA-winning show Life & Rhymes and her poem about the pandemic, filmed on a rollercoaster, was broadcast across America on PBS. She has performed and run workshops across Europe, including at Romania’s Transylvania International Spoken Word Festival, and Estonia’s historical, first-ever queer poetry slam for Baltic Pride. She is a previous Writer in Residence at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Poet in Residence at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and BBC Arts Young Creative. Her poetry/beatbox/Celtic dubstep show ‘Dancing To Music You Hate’ explores gender identity and was commissioned by Warwick Arts Centre. After premiering to standing ovations, it won Best Spoken Word Show in the Saboteur Awards and its titular track was performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, broadcast on BBC Four. Following a sold-out show at Symphony Hall, the show toured the UK in the summer of 2023. Jasmine has most recently penned a new rock anthem for Birmingham, “Brummie Steel” which was performed by a mass collective of 300 musicians, commissioned by Misfits Music Foundation. @jasminegardosi jasminegardosi.com

Joesphine Giles

© Rich Dyson

Harry Josephine Giles is from Orkney and lives in Leith. Her verse novel Deep Wheel Orcadia was published by Picador in October 2021 and won the 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction book of the year. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Stirling. Her show Drone debuted in the Made in Scotland Showcase at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe and toured internationally. Find out more at: www.harryjosephine.com.

Roy McFarlane

Roy McFarlane is a Poet, Writer and former Youth & Community Worker born in Birmingham of Jamaican parentage, spending most of his years living in Wolverhampton and the Black Country and now living in Brighton. He is currently the National Canal Laureate. He’s the former Birmingham Poet Laureate and co-editor of Celebrate Wha? Ten Black British Poets from the Midlands (Smokestack). His three collections are published by Nine Arches Press: Beginning With Your Last Breath and The Healing Next Time (shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and longlisted for the Jhalak Prize) and his third collection Living by Troubled Waters is out now. He’s a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded a Doctor of Letters by the University of Wolverhampton.

Eric Ngalle Charles

© Billie Charity

Eric Ngalle Charles is a Cameroonian writer, poet and playwright, and human rights activist based in Wales. A Ph.D. researcher at King’s College London, he was awarded a Creative Wales Award Fellowship in 2017 for his work on the topics of migration, trauma, and memory. His autobiography I, Eric Ngalle: One Man’s Journey Crossing Continents from Africa to Europe (2019) was published by Parthian Books, and recounts his journey to Europe, spending several years in Russia and elsewhere seeking refuge. He was selected as one of Jackie Kay’s best British BAME writers with a unique theatrical voice. He sits on boards at Literature Wales and Aberystwyth Arts Centre and edited Hiraeth Erzolirzoli: A Wales-Cameroon Anthology (2018). The 3 Molas (2020), an anthology about Cameroon and Wales. His poetry Collection Homelands Seren Books (2022) was published in April.

Rosie Miles

Rosie Miles is a poet, scholar, educator and gardener. She was formerly Reader in English Literature at the University of Wolverhampton and won numerous awards for her teaching, including a National Teaching Fellowship. Rosie published Victorian Poetry in Context (Bloomsbury, 2013) and was External Examiner for several university Creative Writing courses and their poetry modules. Rosie has an MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Manchester Metropolitan University and in 2015 published CUTS (HappenStance Press). She has collaborated with visual artists and composers, and has a poem set into King’s Heath Urban Village Square, Birmingham. She was selected to be part of the Dynamo Poets Mentoring Scheme (Arts Council/Nine Arches Press) in 2017. Rosie continues to teach poetry independently, offering online workshops and courses. She has also retrained as a professional gardener and is General Gardener for the Alpine Garden Society, Pershore, alongside running her own gardening business in south Birmingham, where she lives.

2023

  • Princess Arinola Adegbite for Algorithms of Meaning
  • Jay Gao for Imperium
  • Mukahang Limbu for Mother of Flip-Flops
  • Momtaza Mehri for Bad Diaspora Poems
  • Helen Quah for Dog Woman
  • Charlotte Shevchenko Knight for food for the dead

2022

  • Joe Carrick-Varty for Sky Doc
  • Courtney Conrad for Revelations
  • Jack Cooper for Break the Nose of Every Beautiful Thing
  • Daniella Fearon for Beyond the Monochrome Lens
  • Maisie Newman for Our Names Were Oil
  • Rhiya Pau for Routes
  • Stephanie Sy-Quia for Amnion

2021

  • Phoebe Walker
  • Michael Askew
  • Goboyega Odubanjo
  • Kandace Siobahn Walker
  • Cynthia Miller
  • Milena Williamson
  • Dominic Hand

2020

  • Amina Jama
  • Kadish Morris
  • Natalie Linh Bolderston
  • Roseanne Watt
  • Susanah Dickey

2019

  • Mary Jean Chan
  • Sophie Collins
  • Seán Hewitt
  • Dominic Leonard
  • James Conor Patterson
  • Phoebe Stuckes

2018

  • Zohar Atkins
  • Victoria Adukwei Bulley
  • Jenna Clake
  • Joseph Eastell
  • Annie Katchinska
  • Ali Lewis/ Stephen Sexton

2017

  • Rachael Allen
  • Isabel Galleymore
  • Daisy Lafarge
  • Richard O’Brien
  • Richard Osmond
  • Mark Pajak

2016

  • Sam Buchan-Watts
  • Dom Bury
  • Jen Campbell
  • Alex MacDonald
  • Andrew McMillan

2015

  • Rowan Evans
  • Miriam Nash
  • Padraig Regan
  • Stewart Sanderson
  • Andrew Wynn Owen

2014

  • Sophie Collins
  • Emily Hasler (Lorrie Scott)
  • Martha Sprackland
  • Chloe Stopa-Hunt
  • David Tait

2013

  • John Clegg
  • Kate Gething-Smith
  • Matt Haw
  • Oli Hazzard

2012

  • Sophie Baker
  • Joey Connolly
  • Holly Corfield Carr
  • Caleb Klaces
  • Rachael Madeleine Nicholas
  • Phoebe Power
  • Jon Stone

2011

  • Niall Campbell
  • Tom Chivers
  • Holly Hopkins
  • Martin Jackson
  • Kim Moore

2010

  • Phil Brown
  • Matthew Gregory
  • Sarah Howe
  • Abigail Parry
  • Ahren Warner

2009

  • Liz Berry
  • James Brookes
  • Swithun Cooper
  • Alex McRae
  • Sam Riviere

2008

  • Emily Berry
  • Rhiannon Hooson
  • James Midgley
  • Adam O’Riordan
  • Heather Phillipson

2007

  • Rachel Curzon
  • Miriam Gamble
  • Michael McKimm
  • Helen Mort
  • Jack Underwood

2006

  • Fiona Benson
  • Retta Bowen
  • Frances Leviston
  • Jonathan Morley
  • Eoghan Walls

2005

  • Melanie Challenger
  • Carolyn Jess
  • Luke Kennard
  • Toby Martinez De Las Rivas

2004

  • Nick Laird
  • Elizabeth Manuel
  • Abi Curtis
  • Sophie Mayer
  • Saradha Soobrayen

2003

  • Jen Hadfield
  • Zoe Brigley
  • Paul Batchelor
  • Olivia Cole
  • Sasha Dugdale
  • Anna Woodford

2002

  • Caroline Bird
  • Christopher James
  • Jacob Polley
  • Luke Heeley
  • Judith Lal
  • David Leonard Briggs
  • Eleanor Rees
  • Kathryn Simmonds

2001

  • Leontia Flynn
  • Thomas Warner
  • Tishani Doshi
  • Patrick Mackie
  • Kathryn Gray
  • Sally Read

2000

  • Eleanor Margolies
  • Antony Rowland
  • Antony Dunn
  • Karen Goodwin
  • Clare Pollard

1999

  • Ross Cogan
  • Matthew Hollis
  • Helen Ivory
  • Andrew Pidoux
  • Owen Sheers
  • Dan Wyke

1998

  • Mark Goodwin
  • Joanne Limburg
  • Patrick McGuinness
  • Kona Macphee
  • Esther Morgan
  • Christiania Whitehead
  • Frances Williams

1997

  • Matthew Clegg
  • Sarah Corbett
  • Polly Clark
  • Tim Kendal
  • Graham Nelson
  • Matthew Welton

1996

  • Sue Butler
  • Cathy Cullis
  • Jane Griffiths
  • Jane Holland
  • Chris Jones
  • Sinead Morrissey
  • Kate Thomas

1995

  • Colette Bryce
  • Sophie Hannah
  • Tobias Hill
  • Mark Wormald

1994

  • Julia Copus
  • Alice Oswald
  • Steven Blyth
  • Kate Clanchy
  • Giles Goodland

1993

  • Eleanor Brown
  • Joel Lane
  • Deryn Rees-Jones
  • Sean Boustead
  • Tracey Herd
  • Angela McSeveney

1992

  • Jill Dawson
  • Hugh Dunkerley
  • Christopher Greenhalgh
  • Marita Maddah
  • Stuart Paterson
  • Stuart Pickford

1991

  • Roddy Lumsden
  • Glyn Maxwell
  • Stephen Smith
  • Wayne Burrows
  • Jackie Kay

1990

  • Nicholas Drake
  • Maggie Hannan
  • William Park
  • Jonathan Davidson
  • Lavinia Greenlaw
  • Don Paterson
  • John Wells

1989

  • Gerard Woodward
  • David Morley
  • Katrina Porteous
  • Paul Henry

1988

  • Michael Symmons Roberts
  • Gwyneth Lewis
  • Adrian Blackledge
  • Simon Armitage
  • Robert Crawford

1987

  • Peter McDonald
  • Maura Dooley
  • Stephen Knight
  • Steve Anthony
  • Jill Maughan
  • Paul Munden

1986

  • Mick North
  • Lachlan Mackinnon
  • Oliver Reynolds
  • Stephen Romer

1985

  • Graham Mort
  • Adam Thorpe
  • Pippa Little
  • James Harpur
  • Simon North
  • Julian May

1984

  • Martyn Crucefix
  • Mick Imlah
  • Jamie McKendrick
  • Bill Smith
  • Carol Ann Duffy
  • Christopher Meredith
  • Peter Armstrong
  • Iain Bamforth

1983

  • Martin Stokes
  • Hilary Davies
  • Michael O’Neill
  • Lisa St Aubin De Teran
  • Deidre Shanahan

1982

  • Steve Ellis
  • Jeremy Reed
  • Alison Brackenbury
  • Neil Astley
  • Chris O’Neill
  • Joseph Bristow
  • John Gibbens
  • James Lasdun

1981

  • Alan Jenkins
  • Simon Rae
  • Marion Lomax
  • Philip Gross
  • Kathleen Jamie
  • Mark Abley
  • Roger Crowley
  • Ian Gregson

1980

  • Robert Minhinnick
  • Michael Hulse
  • Blake Morrison
  • Medbh McGuckian

1979

  • Stuart Henson
  • Michael Jenkins
  • Alan Hollinghurst
  • Sean O’Brien
  • Peter Thabit Jones
  • James Lindesay
  • Walter Perrie
  • Brian Moses

1978

  • Ciaran Carson
  • Peter Denman
  • Christopher Reid
  • Paul Wilkins
  • Martyn A. Ford
  • James Sutherland-Smith

1977

  • Tony Flynn
  • Michael Vince
  • David Cooke
  • Douglas Marshall
  • Melissa Murray

1976

  • Stewart Brown
  • Valerie Gillies
  • Paul Groves
  • Paul Hyland
  • Nigel Jenkins
  • Andrew Motion
  • Tom Paulin
  • William Peskett

1975

  • John Birtwhistle
  • Duncan Bush
  • Val Warner
  • Philip Holmes
  • Peter Cash
  • Alasdair Paterson

1974

  • Duncan Forbes
  • Roger Garfitt
  • Robin Hamilton
  • Frank Ormsby
  • Penelope Shuttle

1973

  • John Beynon
  • Ian Caws
  • James Fenton
  • Keith Harris
  • David Howarth
  • Philip Pacey

1972

  • Tony Curtis
  • Richard Burns
  • Brian Oxley
  • Andrew Greig
  • Robin Lee
  • Paul Muldoon

1971

  • Martin Booth
  • Florence Bull
  • John Pook
  • D.M. Warman
  • John Welch

1970

  • Helen Frye
  • Paul Mills
  • John Mole
  • Brian Morse
  • Alan Perry
  • Richard Tibbitts

1969

  • Gavin Bantock
  • Jeremy Hooker
  • Jenny King
  • Neil Powell
  • Landeg E. White

1968

  • James Aitchison
  • Douglas Dunn
  • Brian Jones

1967

  • Angus Calder
  • Marcus Cumberlege
  • David Harsent
  • David Selzer
  • Brian Patten

1966

  • Robin Fulton
  • Seamus Heaney
  • Hugo Williams

1965

  • John Fuller
  • Derek Mahon
  • Michael Longley
  • Norman Talbot

1964

  • Robert Nye
  • Ken Smith
  • Jean Symons
  • Ted Walker

1963

  • Ian Hamilton
  • Stewart Conn
  • Peter Griffith
  • David Wevill

1962

  • Donald Thomas
  • James Simmons
  • Brian Johnson
  • Jenny Joseph

1961

  • Adrian Mitchell
  • Geoffrey Hill

1960

  • Christopher Levenson
Dr. Eric Gregory © Leeds University Library

Dr. Eric Craven Gregory

Dr. Eric Gregory, also known as Peter Gregory, (6 October 1887–1959) was a publisher and benefactor of modern art and artists. Gregory was the director of the Burlington Magazine and chairman of art publishers Percy Lund, Humphries & Co. Ltd. and the Ganymed Press. Before the war he mixed in Surrealist circles, publishing their work. In 1946 he was a member of the organising committee of the Museum of Modern Art. Together with Peter Watson, Herbert Read and Roland Penrose, he founded the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), generously assisting its financing, and he was on its management committee. He funded some original and successful resident fellowships at Leeds University for young artists, musicians and poets. In his will, his left a few of his collection of pictures and sculptures to the Tate Gallery, money to be invested in trust for the benefit of the ICA, and the residue to form a trust fund to provide the Eric Gregory Awards for the benefit and encouragement of young British poets.


Charity number 261451