An English teacher based in Zagreb, Croatia has won the Brotherton Poetry Prize, out of the highest number of entries in the prize’s history.
Judged by a panel of acclaimed writers including Poet Laureate and Professor Simon Armitage, the University of Leeds prize aims to nurture emerging poets by offering mentorship and publication in a dedicated anthology.
This is the first award I’ve won for poetry, which feels like a massive stepping stone
This year saw a record-breaking number of entries for the prize, with around 500 poets submitting their work to be judged anonymously.
Tom Pyle, the winning poet from Lancaster, said: “It is a massive honour to receive this award, especially among such a high calibre of poets.
“I’ve been writing poems for the last six years and over that time, I’ve spent more and more time doing it. This is the first award I’ve won for poetry, which feels like a massive stepping stone.
“I’m going to continue working towards my first collection, and being here tonight is making my ideas crystallise a bit more.”
Pyle’s poetry often focuses on how places influence the sense of self. At the prizegiving, Pyle read ‘Under the Tracks’, a poem packed with the invasive sensory interruptions of a train thundering through a landscape at night.
He graduated with an MA from the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing in 2025, before moving to Zagreb to teach English at an international secondary school.
A magnet for poetry
Hosted by Poetry@Leeds – the University’s hub for poetry – the prize is open to emerging poets based anywhere in the world, who have not yet published a full collection.
Professor Kimberly Campanello, Director of Poetry@Leeds, poet, and competition judge, said: “The city of Leeds is a magnet for poetry, and the University plays a major role in strengthening this exciting force. Our historically significant relationship with poetry dynamically extends to today with the Poet Laureate as Professor at the University, the work of Poetry@Leeds and Cultural Collections, and the recent arrival of the National Poetry Centre, a major University partner. The Brotherton Prize has demonstrated itself to be a significant feature in the national and international poetic landscape thanks to the generosity of the Charles Brotherton Trust.
“It is fantastic to see the previous winners and shortlistees going on to publish their own collections – and it shows that the Brotherton Poetry Prize is a strong indicator of exciting things to come. Poetry@Leeds looks forward to supporting this new cohort of up-and-coming poets through this unique opportunity.”
Accelerating the journey to publishing
Now celebrating its fourth prizegiving, the Brotherton Poetry Prize is becoming an indicator of future success. Previous winners of the Prize are Dane Holt (Prize I), Lauren Pope (Prize II), and Dillon Jaxx (Prize III). Jaxx is set to publish their debut collection, ‘like starlings falling’, in July 2026 with Nine Arches Press. Other winners and shortlistees who have recently published collections include Kim Deyn (Nine Arches Press), Dane Holt (Carcanet), Majella Kelly (Penguin), Lauren Pope (Blue Diode Press), and Lucy Holme (Broken Sleep).
It isn’t a prize that should be entered lightly, and it can’t be won by accident.
This year’s shortlisted poets are:
- Alison Tanik, performer and writer from the Midlands who came to writing in her 50s
- Paul McMahon, from Belfast, who was awarded The Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize by Carol Ann Duffy
- Jo Bratten, a London-based English teacher with a PhD from St Andrews University, who grew up in the American midwest
- A.K. Ellis, a writer from Oxford who has been published in Ash, the Mays Anthology, the Fish Anthology, and His Father’s Breath.
Poet Laureate and Professor of Poetry, Simon Armitage, said: “Part of what makes the Brotherton Poetry Prize meaningful is that it is judged anonymously in a thorough and rigorous way. It isn’t a prize that should be entered lightly, and it can’t be won by accident. It is a genuine road to publishing, and it recognises sustained poetic achievement across several poems and several pages.”
The winner of the Brotherton Poetry Prize, which is generously supported by the Charles Brotherton Trust, receives £1,000 and the opportunity to develop their creative practice with Poetry@Leeds. The four runners-up will each receive £200.
The poems of the five shortlisted poets will be published as an anthology by Carcanet Press.
This year’s judging panel includes Professor Simon Armitage, Professor Kimberly Campanello, Professor Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Dr Zaffar Kunial, Professor Helen Mort, Professor Matthew Treherne, Dr Emma Trott, and Professor John Whale.
Read one of the winning poems
Tom Pyle’s ‘Under the Tracks’ was included in his winning submission.
Under the Tracks
Show me how the tar black
shadow growls between day
and night. How a forty-car-long
body speaks above the silence
of a city at 3 am. I want to see it
in your eyes, the string of windows
like factory lamps. Want to hear
in your mouth the diesel thunder
and the horn rolling over cold
streets, cold gates, cold roofs
with cargo sweating inside. Tell me
how you sensed in a half-dream
half-wakened moment the purr
across the ceiling, the whisper
from the cord that keeps your blinds
in place. How it left you sharpened,
breathing, ready to kick. Iron
sleepers pounding in your chest.
© Tom Pyle, 2026
More about the shortlisted poets
Alison Tanik
Alison Tanik is a poet/performer from the Midlands who came to writing in her fifties. Her poetry has won prizes in both the States and the UK, and has been shortlisted for (among others) the Oxford Poetry Prize, the Aurora Prize, the Bridport Prize, the Creative Futures Award (three times!), and an array of Mslexia prizes (in poetry, flash fiction and pamphlet categories). Her theatre work was long-listed for the Richard Jenkins Commission. She is a Nine Arches Dynamo Poet for 2025-2026; the judge of this year's River Heron Poetry Prize in America, and a current Pushcart nominee. She is in the first year of her PhD at the Manchester Writing School, looking at archival silences.
Paul McMahon
From Belfast, Paul McMahon’s chapbook, Bourdon, was published by Southword Editions. He was awarded The Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize by Carol Ann Duffy. Currently nominated for the Forward Poetry Prize by The Poetry Society, Paul’s other poetry awards include first prizes in The Moth International, The Fingal, The Plaza, The Westival International, The Nottingham Open, The Gloucester, The Golden Pen, and The Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Collection Prize. His poems have appeared in The Poetry Review, Poetry News, Rialto, London Magazine, Threepenny Review, Southword, Irish Times, The Best New British and Irish Poets and elsewhere.
Tom Pyle
Tom is a writer from Lancaster who is currently based in Zagreb, where he works as a teacher. He started writing poems during the pandemic and has spent more and more time doing so over the last six years. In 2024 he began studying for an MA at the Centre for New Writing in Manchester, graduating in 2025. During this period, he was an editor of the Manchester Anthology, showcasing a selection of poetry, fiction and non-fiction from writers on the programme.
He often writes about place and the ways that different places affect our sense of ourselves. He is also interested in unseen moments and the interactions between history, memory and the day to day. He lists Wallace Stevens, Lorna Goodison and George Szirtes as influences. He is currently working towards a first collection.
Jo Bratten
Originally from the midwest of America, Jo moved to the UK in the late '90s and completed a PhD at St Andrews and now lives in London, where she teaches English. Her poetry has been widely published in the UK and Ireland, with recent work in Bad Lilies, The London Magazine, Magma, Perverse and Poetry London. She won second prize in The Rialto Nature and Place Competition in 2023 and her pamphlet, Climacteric, was published in 2022. She is poetry editor at The Interpreter’s House.
A. K. Ellis
A. K. Ellis' poems have been published in Ash, the Mays Anthology, the Fish Anthology, and His Father’s Breath. She has been shortlisted for the Bridport and Winchester poetry prizes, among others. She lives and works in Oxford, by a river that sometimes comes inside the house.
Further information
Photos by Rowland Thomas, University of Leeds.
Email University of Leeds Press Officer Mia Saunders at m.saunders@leeds.ac.uk with media enquiries.