Tishani Doshi's Egrets, While War shortlisted for the PEN Heaney Prize 2026
Poet, novelist and dancer Tishani Doshi's fifth collection Egrets, While War is on the six-strong shortlist for the PEN Heaney Prize 2026. The shortlist was announced today, 24 September 2026. Now in its third year, the PEN Heaney Prize celebrates poetry that engages with the impact of cultural and political events on human conditions and relationships.
The PEN Heaney Prize 2026 is judged by poets Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Vona Groarke and Stephen Sexton, with Mick Heaney joining them as non-voting Chair and representing the Estate of Seamus Heaney.
Of Egrets, While War, the judging panel said:
‘Tishani Doshi’s dextrous, vibrant and vital poems delight and shimmer. Across Egrets, While War, the range of her subjects is vast: the ancient and modern comingle with poems of personal and civic responsibility. Throughout, an aviary of sonnets addresses the birds of mythology and literature with grace and invention. Wars, historical and contemporary, provide the contexts for these powerful poems of resistance and humanity.’
Egrets, While War, published by Bloodaxe in May this year, navigates the deep entanglements between environmental loss, ancestral memory, the slow transformations of ageing, and the devastations of war. With lyric clarity and a gaze both wide and precise, Egrets, While War becomes a meditation on survival – of species, of history, of the heart. Egrets, While War is also on the shortlist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2026.
The PEN Heaney Prize recognises a single-author collection of poetry of outstanding literary merit that engages with the impact of cultural or political events on human conditions or relationships. Bloodaxe poet Yang Lian was shortlisted for the inaugural PEN Heaney Prize in 2024 for his collection A Tower Built Downwards, translated by Brian Holton.
The Prize is run by English PEN, together with Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and the Estate of Seamus Heaney. The winner of the 2026 Prize will be announced in Leeds, marking the first time the ceremony has been held in England, following previous ceremonies in Dublin and Belfast.
The winner of this year’s PEN Heaney Prize will be announced on Tuesday 1 December 2026 at a ceremony at the Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, in partnership with the National Poetry Centre. The event will include the performance of new poetry with live musical accompaniment from local community group Speak Your Truth, inspired by the theme of the Prize. Tickets available here.
The full shortlist can be seen on the PEN Heaney website here.
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For print or digital review copies of Egrets, While War please contact Christine Macgregor: publicity@bloodaxebooks.com.
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'Doshi reminds us that moments of beauty – of nature, human and nonhuman – persist. […] In ‘A theory on the origin of language’, Tishani Doshi bids her reader: ‘Now scream. Now sing.’ And this is precisely what Egrets, While War does. Her poems scream fiercely, unflinchingly of war and then, without blinking, she sings of what we might return to, what we might survive for.' – Ellora Sutton, Mslexia
‘Flowing between rage, resolve, and fierce love, Egrets, While War feels like being carefully guided through a long, dark night of the soul. A book to dwell on; a must-read.’ – Dave Coates, Poetry Book Society Bulletin
‘Fashion aside, what we mostly turn to poetry for remains something to do with beauty and meaning – what we might call the lyric impulse. Yet pure lyricism can seem indulgent, and just plain inaccurate, in a world familiar with suffering and catastrophe. […] And so, the question becomes how today’s poets can integrate a necessary lyricism – what we might call hope – with honesty about the dangerous state of the world. Very few contemporaries manage this, which is why Tishani Doshi’s Egrets, While War is such a significant work. It’s also – crucially, for the non-specialist audience – a deeply engaging, frankly beautiful read. […] Ultimately, this is a kind of praise song: for the beautiful world which continues in the face of disasters and will, Doshi predicts, survive even “the Anthropause”. Praise is the solution this radically hopeful – and occasionally very funny – book offers.' – Fiona Sampson, The Tablet
'In Doshi’s work, nature seems to offer hope beyond human ruin — the contemporary moment, even with its overwhelming destructiveness, is condensed into the term ‘Anthropause,’ rather than the Anthropocene — nature continues in its aftermath. […] Her poetry is taut with this tension between, on the one hand, shell-shocked realities and scepticism for art’s impact, and on the other, her poetic inheritance, which is the imagery of birds, from the albatross to the ‘Two Birds that Kick off the Ramayana.’' – Matilda Nevin, Poetry Wales
‘For me, the dominant mood of this collection is elegiac. We sense farewells to human decency and compassion, to birds on the red list, to oceans being destroyed. The quality of the writing means what while often bleak, the world we are invited into also has a wild beauty.’ – Hannah Stone, The Lake
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Tishani Doshi: 'Home Speaks in Many Tongues' from Egrets, While War
Tishani Doshi gave a series of performances of poems from her fifth collection Egrets, While War at festivals in Britain and Ireland in summer 2026, including several presentations combining poetry, dance, music and film. This clip of her dance interpretation of the poem ‘Home Speaks in Many Tongues’ was recorded during her event at the Jaipur Literature Festival London at the British Library on 7 June 2026.
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PODCAST INTERVIEWS WITH TISHANI DOSHI
WritersMosaic, In conversation series, 12 August 2026
A wide-ranging discussion between Tishani Doshi and Royal Literary Fund Bridge Fellow Dr Vayu Naidu is featured in the WritersMosaic in conversation podcast which went live on 12 August 2026.
Tishani read and spoke about poems from her first three collections and ended by reading ‘Amor Mundi’ from her fifth collection Egrets, While War. The podcast began with a clip of Tishani reading the title poem from her third collection Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, which she read in full later in the podcast. She also read ‘A Memory of Wales’ and ‘The Adulterous Citizen’ from her second collection – her first with Bloodaxe - Everything Begins Elsewhere. Tishani spoke in detail about the dance performances she created for Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods and Egrets, While War.
‘Vayu Naidu talks to Tishani Doshi about the round-the-world adventures her poetry has taken her on.’
https://writersmosaic.org.uk/content/tishani-doshi-in-conversation-with-vayu-naidu/
VERVE Poetry podcast: Tishani Doshi, 16 August 2026
Tishani Doshi was interviewed for the inaugural VERVE Poetry podcast. She was in conversation with Hayley Frances about her fifth collection Egrets, While War. Tishani ended by reading her poem 'A Theory on the Origin of Language' from that collection.
‘Our first poet of the series is Tishani Doshi, and I spoke with her about her new book, Egrets, While War, published by Bloodaxe Books. Our patron, Imtiaz Dharker, describes this book as drawing “on everything from myth and family history to the metaverse, to create a word-weather, a landscape of individual imagery which we apprehend on our skin — an original and sensory exploration of beauty and loss in the environment and in the body.” And I don’t know how I could give it a better introduction.’
This 55-minute conversation is now available on Substack free of charge. A full transcript of the conversation is on the page below.
https://vervepoetry.substack.com/p/youve-got-poetry-youve-got-music
[24 September 2026]
