Bloodaxe Books of the Year 2025
Lode by Gillian Allnutt, shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2025
'Silence is prized, with more space on the page than text. Like Stevie Smith, she can write with a child’s-eye view (as in 'Berthe') that is moving and strange. Lode speaks to our confused and chaotic age. [...] In times of noise and bluster, Allnutt makes space for beauty.' – Graeme Richardson, The Sunday Times, on Lode, his Poetry Book of the Year 2025
‘...the best poetry collections were both serious and strong. Perhaps that’s down to maturity. Tipped for the TS Eliot Prize, British poetry’s crown, is the 76-year-old British poet Gillian Allnutt […] Deft and lovely, her 10th collection zips between her uncle’s death, fighting in the RAF, to her meeting with Elizabeth II in 2016 (“majestic, merciful, / the moon’s own soul”).’ – The Telegraph (Poetry Books of the Year 2025) on Lode
Avidya by Vidyan Ravinthiran, winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2025
'Avidya shared the Forward prize for best collection this year (with Karen Solie’s Wellwater), and the only surprise was the sharing. Vidyan Ravinthiran was born in Leeds to Sri Lankan Tamil parents and he explores two worlds and two languages. [...] Avidya deals with political violence: Sri Lanka “a teardrop on the map” where “the pen is a torn-out tooth”. The collection traces difficult histories, personal and national, but this is really a book about complicated love, asking “why barbed wire’s besotted with its barbs”.' – Graeme Richardson, The Sunday Times (Poetry Books of the Year 2025)
New Arcana by Jessica Traynor
‘Themes of memory, love and loss rub shoulders with Tarot in Dublin poet Jessica Traynor’s fourth collection. [...] a strikingly beautiful nod to the lasting echoes of a friendship - and one not without humour at times, too.’ – Lauren Murphy, RTÉ Culture (The best Irish books of 2025)
Versus Versus: 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets, edited by Rachael Boast, Poetry Book Society Recommendation
‘Versus Versus contains astonishing poems by Hoshino Tomihiro (translated by John Newton Webb), Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Les Murray, Ona Gritz and many more.’ – Ali Lewis (The Poetry Society, 2025 Reading Recommendations)
BACKLIST TITLES CHOSEN IN 2025
The Butterfly's Burden by Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Fady Joudah, winner of the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation 2008 (Arabic-English edition)
'I have been revisiting The Butterfly’s Burden by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. The lyricism of his writing and imagination, and his attachment to his land, feel all the more important today.' – Elif Shafak, The Observer (Books of the Year 2025)
[03 December 2025]
