TS Eliot Prize caps winning streak for poet’s collection

Jason Allen-Paisant’s Self-Portrait As Othello scooped up the prestigious award

By Mark Cantrell

MANCHESTER poet Jason Allen-Paisant has versed his way to a prestigious award, winning the TS Elliot Prize for poetry.

Allen-Paisant’s collection, Self-Portrait As Othello explores Black masculinity and immigrant identity.

The Jamaican poet, who is a senior lecturer in critical theory and creative writing at Manchester University’s Centre for New Writing, was announced as this year’s winner during a ceremony at the Wallace Collection in London.

“Self-Portrait As Othello is a book with large ambitions that are met with great imaginative capacity, freshness and technical flair,” according to the judging panel, made up of the poets Paul Muldoon, Sasha Dugdale, and Denise Saul.

Dr Kaye Mitchell, director of the Centre for New Writing, said: “Self-Portrait as Othello has rightly swept the board of poetry prizes in 2023 and the TS Eliot prize is the crowning achievement for this deeply intelligent, bold and captivating collection. We couldn’t be more delighted for Jason!”

The award follows on from Allen-Paisant winning the Forward Prize for Best Collection last October, and the book has also since been shortlisted for the Writers’ Prize.

The collection is published by Manchester-based Carcanet Press, a publisher with a long association with the university, through the John Rylands Research Institute Library, and is run by Professor John McAuliffe and Professor Michael Schmidt, who also teach at the Centre for New Writing.

Allen-Paisant’s first collection, Thinking With Trees, was published in 2021. His non-fiction book, Scanning the Bush, will be published later this year.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

For the price of a cup of coffee you’d not only be showing your appreciation of the writer’s efforts, but also helping to support an indie author in these difficult times.