MEET THE SELECTORS
Every quarter our expert team of poet selectors read hundreds of poetry books and pamphlets, submitted in an open call to all publishers big and small. They choose the very best new poetry books to award the PBS Selections and deliver to our members across the globe.
VICTORIA KENNEFICK
BOOK SELECTOR
Starting with Spring 2025 Books
Victoria Kennefick's debut collection, Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet Press, 2021), won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize and the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award. It was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Costa Poetry Book Award, Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the Butler Literary Prize. A UCD/Arts Council of Ireland Writer-in-Residence 2023 and Poet-in-Residence at the Yeats Society
Sligo 2022-2023, Victoria is now Cork County Council Writer-in-Residence 2024.
Her second collection, Egg/Shell (Carcanet Press, 2024) was a PBS Choice for Spring 2024 and BBC Poetry Extra Book of the Month for March.
YOMI ṢODE
BOOK SELECTOR
Starting with Spring 2025
Yomi Ṣode is a Nigerian British writer. His debut Manorism, published by Penguin in October 2022 alongside a stage adaptation at the Southbank Centre, is shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2023 and the T.S. Eliot Prize 2022. He was shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2021, and received the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship in 2019. Yomi's acclaimed one-man show COAT toured nationally to sold-out audiences, including at the Brighton Festival, Roundhouse Camden and the Battersea Arts Centre. In 2020 his libretto Remnants, written in collaboration with award-winning composer James B. Wilson and performed with Chineke! Orchestra premiered on BBC Radio 3. In 2021, his play, and breathe… premiered at the Almeida Theatre to rave reviews. Yomi is a Complete Works alumnus and a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. He is the founder of BoxedIN, First Five, The Daddy Diaries, and mentorship programme, 12 in 12.
SHIVANEE RAMLOCHAN
TRANSLATION SELECTOR
Winter 2023 Selection onwards
Shivanee Ramlochan is a Trinidadian writer. Her debut poetry book, Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting (Peepal Tree Press, 2017), was shortlisted for the 2018 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Recently, her poems have been anthologized in 100 Queer Poems (Faber); After Sylvia: Poems and Essays in Celebration of Sylvia Plath (Nine Arches Press); Across Borders: An Anthology of New Poetry from the Commonwealth (Verve Poetry Press). The Spanish edition of Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting (Todos saben que soy una aparición) is in development, and Shivanee’s second book, Unkillable, on Indo-Caribbean women’s disobedience, is forthcoming in 2024.
ALYCIA PIRMOHAMED
PAMPHLET SELECTOR
We're excited to announce our new Pamphlet Selector joining Arji Manuelpillai to read the Summer round will be Alycia
Pirmohamed. Alycia is the author of Another Way to Split Water which was a PBS Recommendation and Hinge which was a Pamphlet Choice. As well as Faces that Fled the Wind, and the collaborative work, Second Memory, co-authored by Pratyusha. Her nonfiction debut A Beautiful and Vital Place won the 2023 Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing and is forthcoming with Canongate. Alycia currently teaches on the Creative Writing master’s at the University of Cambridge, and she is the co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network and a co-organiser of the Ledbury Poetry Critics.
YOUSIF M. QASMIYEH
PAMPHLET SELECTOR
Winter 2024 onwards
Born and educated in Baddawi refugee camp in Lebanon, Yousif M. Qasmiyeh is a poet and translator who completed his doctorate in English Literature at the University
of Oxford. Time, the body and ruination inform his poetry and prose, which have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, Critical Quarterly, Cambridge Literary Review, PN Review, Stand, New England Review, Poetry London and Wasafiri. Yousif is the Creative Encounters Editor of the Migration and Society journal and Writer-in-Residence for the Refugee Hosts project. His debut collection, Writing the Camp (Broken Sleep Books, 2021), was a 2021 PBS Recommendation; was selected as one of the Best Poetry Books of 2021 by the Telegraph and the Irish Times; was highly commended by the 2021 Forward Prizes for Poetry; and was shortlisted for the 2022 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. Yousif’s latest book is Eating the Archive (Broken Sleep Books, 2023).
ARJI MANUELPILLAI
PODCAST HOST
Arji Manuelpillai is a poet, performer and creative facilitator based in London. His poetry has appeared in magazines including Poetry Wales, The Rialto and Bath Magg, and his debut pamphlet, Mutton Rolls, was published with Out-Spoken Press. Arji was shortlisted for the Out-Spoken Prize, the Live Canon Prize, the National Poetry Prize and was runner-up in the Robert Graves Prize. He is a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen and London Stanza, received an Arts Council England award to develop his creative practice, and worked with Hannah Lowe as part of the Jerwood Arvon Mentoring Programme. Arji’s debut collection Improvised Explosive Device is due out in October with Penned in the Margins.
MEET OUR REVIEWERS
DAVE COATES
PBS Bulletin Reviewer since 2021
Dave Coates is a critic and essayist based in Edinburgh. He was a co-organiser of the Ledbury Critics Programme, and his writing has appeared in Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Stinging Fly, Extra Teeth, catflap, spamzine and many other magazines. He has been a reviewer for the PBS Bulletin since 2021.
JENNY DANES
Writing Squad Reviewer
JENNY DANES is a poet and facilitator whose work has appeared in Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Magma, Under the Radar, Basket, and bath magg. In 2016 she won The Poetry Business’ New Poets Prize, and her pamphlet Gaps was published by Smith|Doorstop. Find out more at www.jennydanes.co.uk.
BETH DAVIES
Writing Squad Reviewer
Beth Davies is the current Sheffield Poet Laureate 2024-26. Her debut pamphlet, The Pretence of Understanding, was published by The Poetry Business in 2023 after winning the 2022 New Poets Prize. More information about her work can be found at bethdaviespoet.wordpress.com.
JASMINE GRAY
Writing Squad Reviewer
Jasmine Gray is a Northern writer with art criticism and poetry published in Anthropocene, The London Magazine, and The Double Negative. She published two
pamphlets with Broken Sleep Books, Let’s Photograph Girls Enjoying Life (2019) and
Open Your Mouth (2023).
KAYLEIGH JAYSHREE
Writing Squad Reviewer
Kayleigh Jayshree is a poet and reviewer. She is an alumna of the Roundhouse Collective and performed poetry at Glastonbury Festival. She has published reviews in PN Review and Ink Sweat & Tears. Her pamphlet is due out with fourteen poems.
GREGORY KEARNS
Writing Squad Reviewer
Gregory Kearns is based in Liverpool. He was published in Bath Magg, The
Mersey Review and Not About Now and has worked with English Heritage, No Dice
Collective and Tmesis Theatre. He hosts The Poems We Made Along The Way podcast.
ROSE SCHIERIG
NWN x PBS First Edition Intern
Rose Schierig is a poet and MA Writing Poetry student at Newcastle University.
She graduated with a BA in English Literature with Creative Writing from Newcastle University in 2024. You can read her writing @fromrosamund on Instagram.
TAYIBA SULAIMAN
Writing Squad Reviewer
Tayiba Sulaiman is a writer and translator from Manchester. Her work has recently appeared in Prospect Magazine, World of Interiors and PEN Transmissions.
SHASH TREVETT
PBS Bulletin Reviewer since 2021
Shash Trevett is a poet and translator of Tamil poetry into English. Her collection The Naming of Names was published by Smith|Doorstop (2024). She is a Ledbury Critic and a Trustee of Modern Poetry in Translation.