2025 Winners
This year’s winner Katrina Porteous was judged by the poets Kathleen Jamie (Chair), Daljit Nagra, and former leader and co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Caroline Lucas:
Winner: Katrina Porteous Rhizodont (Bloodaxe Books)
Finalists:
Judith Beveridge Tintinnabulum (Giramondo Publishing)
JR Carpenter Measures of Weather (Shearsman Books)
Eliza O’Toole A Cranic of Ordinaries (Shearsman Books)
Carol Watts Mimic Pond (Shearsman Books)
The prize awards £5,000 to the winner and £1,000 to each of the four finalists. This year’s Laurel Prize Ceremony was on Friday 19 September 2025 and was a part of BBC Contains Strong Language Festival.
Previous Winners
2024
First Prize: John Burnside, Ruin, Blossom (Jonathan Cape)
Second Prize: Hannah Copley, Lapwing (Pavilion Poetry)
Third Prize: Robyn Maree Pickens, Tung (Otago University Press)
Best UK First Collection: Charlotte Shevchenko, Knight Food for the Dead (Jonathan Cape)
Best International First Collection: Megan Kitching, At the Point of Seeing (Otago University Press)
Judges
Mona Arshi (Chair)
Caroline Bird
Kwame Dawes
2023
First Prize: Jorie Graham, To 2040 (Carcanet Press)
Second Prize: Zaffar Kunial, England’s Green (Faber & Faber)
Third Prize: Holly Hopkins, The English Summer (Penned in The Margins)
Best UK First Collection: Yvonne Reddick, Burning Season (Bloodaxe Books)
Best International First Collection: Liza Katz Duncan, Given (Autumn House Press)
Judges
Pascale Petit (Chair)
Reeta Chakrabarti
Nick Laird
2022
First Prize: Linda France, The Knucklebone Floor (Smokestack Books)
Second Prize: Steve Ely, The European Eel (Longbarrow Press)
Third Prize: Jemma Borg, Wilder (Pavilion Books)
Best First Collection: Cynthia Miller, Honorifics (Nine Arches Press)
Best International First Collection: Rebecca Hawkes, Meat Lovers (Auckland University Press)
Judges
Glyn Maxwell (Chair)
Elena Karina Byrne
Tishani Doshi
2021
First Prize: Seán Hewitt, Tongues of Fire (Jonathan Cape)
Second Prize: Ash Davida Jane, How to Live with Mammals (Victoria University Press)
Third Prize: Sean Borodale, Inmates (Jonathan Cape)
Best First Collection: Will Burns, Country Music (Offord Road Books)
Judges
Maura Dooley (Chair)
Imtiaz Dharker
James Thornton
2020
First Prize: Pascale Petit, Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe Books)
Second Prize: Karen McCarthy Woolf, Seasonal Disturbances (Carcanet)
Third Prize: Colin Simms, Hen Harrier (Shearsman)
Best First Collection: Matt Howard, Gall (The Rialto)
Judges
UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage (Chair)
Moniza Alvi
Robert Macfarlane