Poetry Winner: Jeremy Pak Nelson
We are delighted to introduce to you the winner of the Mairtín Crawford Award for Poetry 2026 Jeremy Pak Nelson.
Click here to read some of Jeremy's winning poems
It's an incredible honour to be chosen for the Mairtín Crawford Award, and I am thrilled to be gifted the time to write at The Crescent in Belfast. Especially at this early stage of my career, knowing that these poems can resonate with a wider audience is invaluable encouragement as I continue working on my first collection. I'm deeply grateful to the judges for selecting my poems for the award and including me as part of Mairtín Crawford's legacy.
Jeremy Pak Nelson is a writer and artist from Hong Kong. He is a current Manchester Multilingual City Poet, and his work has appeared in Magma, Interpret, Small Wonders, among others. His climate fiction has been selected as a Grist: Imagine 2200 Editor’s Pick, and he was writer-in-residence at the UK Space Conference 2025. He was part of the inaugural Poets of Colour Incubator program, and holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His preoccupations include outdated methods of putting words on paper, folk fiddle, and the game of go. He can be found at JPakNelson.com.
The runner-up's and Shortlist of the Poetry Award 2026 are as follows:
1st Runner Up: Loretta Stanley
2nd Runner Up: Jilly O’Brien
Shortlist (in alphabetical order): Pratibha Castle, Róisín Leggett Bohan and Sarah Michaelides.
Many congratulations to all the nominees!
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