Listowel Writers’ Week names the 2026 finalists as the award reaches its thirteenth year with an increased prize fund.
In Ireland, poetry has always held its place at the centre of cultural life. The announcement of a shortlist carries a particular weight. It marks not only recognition, but a moment of pause, where the work of language is brought into focus. The Pigott Poetry Prize, awarded annually as part of Listowel Writers’ Week, has come to define that moment. The 2026 shortlist brings together three poets whose work reflects the depth and range of contemporary practice: Dean Browne, Jessica Traynor, and Bernard O’Donoghue.
Dean Browne’s After Party is a debut of quiet assurance. His work has already been recognised through significant prizes and international publication, and this first full collection confirms a voice marked by restraint and precision. These are poems that resist excess, attentive to tone and to the spaces between what is said and what is withheld.
Jessica Traynor’s New Arcana continues a body of work that has steadily expanded in ambition and reach. Her writing moves with control between the personal and the symbolic, drawing on image and pattern as a way of thinking through experience. The collection reflects a poet working with confidence, deepening an already distinctive voice.
With The Anchorage, Bernard O’Donoghue returns with the authority of a poet whose work has been shaped over decades. His writing remains grounded in clarity and attention, particularly to place and memory, while continuing to find new inflections within familiar themes. It is a collection that speaks with quiet confidence rather than declaration.
Now in its thirteenth year, the Pigott Poetry Prize has announced an increase in its award. The 2026 winner will receive €20,000, with €2,000 awarded to each of the other shortlisted poets. It is the largest monetary prize in Ireland for a new poetry collection by an Irish poet. The announcement comes as Listowel Writers’ Week marks its 55th anniversary in 2026, underscoring both the longevity of the festival and its continued investment in contemporary writing.
Announcing the shortlist, Chairman of Listowel Writers’ Week, Ned O’Sullivan, said:
“We are deeply grateful to the Pigott family for their continued support of this award. This year’s shortlist reflects the strength and diversity of contemporary poetry in Ireland, and we are proud to celebrate these three outstanding poets.”
The winner of the 2026 Pigott Poetry Prize will be announced during Listowel Writers’ Week, which takes place from 27th to 31st May 2026. As ever, the festival will bring writers and readers together in a town where literature remains a living presence, carried in conversation as much as on the page.
Pictured : The three shortlisted collections for the 2026 Pigott Poetry Prize, pictured in the Bryan MacMahon Room, Kerry Writers’ Museum. Photograph by Lisa O’Flaherty
