Joe Carrick-Varty’s debut collection More Sky (Carcanet Press, 2023) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and won an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. Joe’s work has appeared in New Statesman, Granta, POETRY, The Poetry Review, The Forward Book of Poetry, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review and Poetry London. He is the author of two pamphlets of poetry: 54 Questions for the Man Who Sold a Shotgun to My Father (Out-Spoken Press, 2020) and Somewhere Far (The Poetry Business, 2019). In 2023, he was named the Anthony Burgess Fellow in Creative Writing by the University of Manchester.
Quotes
As strong as any debut I’ve read in years. – Shane McCrae
Joe Carrick-Varty writes with a sharp eye and a strong hand. – Jeanette Winterson
Carrick-Varty has created something wholly individual and inspired with this collection. – Anthony Anaxagorou
This pamphlet is open-hearted, thoughtful – painfully, beautifully alive to the world and its strange specifics. – Ella Frears
I’m utterly convinced of this poet’s talent. – Wayne Holloway-Smith
These poems carry the vivid pain of loss and difficult relationships, even while enacting the necessary agony of letting go. – Meryl Pugh The Poetry Review
The syntactical precision here demonstrates a care and attention to the weight and balance of each line that is laudable but when wedded to feeling, as it is here, technical excellence rises above mere flair in to something very special. These are assured and beguiling poems. – Kayo Chingonyi (Judge’s commentary – New Poets Prize)
Somewhere Far is an auspicious debut. – John McAuliffe
