We use cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. By continuing without changing your cookie settings, we assume you agree to this. Please read our cookie policy to find out more.
Victoria Kennefick BA 2000, MA 2001, PhD 2009
Congratulations to UCC English graduate Victoria Kennefick who has been shortlisted for the prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize. The T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry was inaugurated in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society’s 40th birthday and honour its founding poet.
Described as ‘the prize most poets want to win’ (Sir Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate) and ‘the world’s top poetry award’ (Independent), it is awarded annually to the author of the best new collection of poetry published in the UK and Ireland.
It is firmly established as the most valuable and prestigious prize in the UK for a new collection of poetry. It is distinctive among poetry prizes in being judged by a panel of established poets. In 2017, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Prize, the T.S. Eliot Estate increased the value of the Prize. The winner now receives £25,000 and the ten shortlisted poets each receive £1,500. In 2016 the charity the Poetry Book Society closed down, transferring the Poetry Book Society, its membership and book club to Inpress Ltd. The T.S. Eliot Prize was taken over by the T.S. Eliot Foundation, which now runs and supports it.
Victoria Kennefick is a poet, writer and teacher from Shanagarry, Co. Cork now based in Co. Kerry. She holds a doctorate in English from UCC and studied at Emory University, and Georgia College and State University as part of a Fulbright Scholarship. Her pamphlet, White Whale (Southword Editions, 2015), won the Munster Literature Centre Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition and the Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Poetry Review, PN Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, Poetry News, Prelude, Copper Nickel, The Irish Times, Ambit, bath magg, Banshee and elsewhere. She won the 2013 Red Line Book Festival Poetry Prize and many of her poems have also been anthologised and broadcast on national radio stations.
A recipient of a Next Generation Artist Award from the Arts Council of Ireland, she has also received bursaries from Kerry County Council and Words Ireland. She was a co-host of the Unlaunched Books Podcast and is on the committee of Listowel Writers’ Week, Ireland’s longest-running literary festival.