Costa Book Award for Poetry

The Costa Book Award for Poetry, formerly known as the Whitbread Award (1971–2006), was an annual literary award for poetry collections, part of the Costa Book Awards. The award concluded in 2022.^[1][2]

Recipients

Costa Books of the Year are distinguished with a bold font and a blue ribbon (). Award winners are listed in bold.

Costa Book Award for Poetry winners and finalists^[3]

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
1971	Geoffrey Hill	Mercian Hymns	Winner
No award presented 1972-1984
1985	Douglas Dunn	Elegies	Winner
1986	Peter Reading	Stet	Winner
1987	Seamus Heaney	The Haw Lantern	Winner
1988	Peter Porter	The Automatic Oracle	Winner
1989	Michael Donaghy	Shibboleth	Winner
1990	Paul Durcan	Daddy, Daddy	Winner
1991	Michael Longley	Gorse Fires	Winner
1992	Tony Harrison	The Gaze of the Gorgon	Winner
1993	Carol Ann Duffy	Mean Time	Winner
1994	James Fenton	Out of Danger	Winner
1995	Bernard O'Donoghue	Gunpowder	Winner
	Simon Armitage	The Dead Sea Poems	Shortlist
	Tony Harrison	The Shadow of Hiroshima and other film/poems
	Glyn Maxwell	Rest for the Wicked
1996	Seamus Heaney	The Spirit Level	Winner
	U. A. Fanthorpe	Safe as Houses	Shortlist
	Alice Oswald	The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile
	Christopher Reid	Expanded Universes
	Pauline Stainer	The Wound-dresser's Dream
1997	Ted Hughes	Tales from Ovid	Winner
	Simon Armitage	CloudCuckooLand	Shortlist
	Selima Hill	Sugar-Paper blue Violet
	Christopher Reid	Expanded Universes
	Peter Redgrove	Assembling a Ghost
1998	Ted Hughes	Birthday Letters	Winner
	Philip Gross	The Wasting Game	Shortlist
	Paul Farley	The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See you
1999	Seamus Heaney	Beowulf: A New Verse Translation	Winner
	Michael Hofmann	Approximately Nowhere	Shortlist
	Ted Hughes	Alcestis
	Don Paterson	The Eyes
2000	John Burnside	The Asylum Dance	Winner
	Michael Donaghy	Conjure	Shortlist
	R F Langley	Collected Poems
	Anne Stevenson	Granny Scarecrow
	Maurice Riordan	Floods
2001	Selima Hill	Bunny	Winner
	Charles Boyle	The Age of Cardboard and String	Shortlist
	Wendy Cope	If I don't know
	John Stammers	Panoramic Lounge-Bar
2002	Paul Farley	The Ice Age	Winner
	David Constantine	Something for the Ghosts	Shortlist
	Ruth Padel	Voodoo Shop
	Sheenagh Pugh	The Beautiful Lie
2003	Don Paterson	Landing Light	Winner
	Lavinia Greenlaw	Minsk	Shortlist
	Jamie McKendrick	Ink Stone
	Jean Sprackland	Hard Water
2004	Michael Symmons Roberts	Corpus	Winner
	Leontia Flynn	These Days	Shortlist
	John Fuller	Ghosts
	Matthew Hollis	Ground Water
	Michael Symmons Roberts	Corpus
2005	Christopher Logue	Cold Calls	Winner
	David Harsent	Legion	Shortlist
	Richard Price	Lucky Day
	Jane Yeh	Marabou
2006	John Haynes	Letter to Patience	Winner
	Vicki Feaver	The Book of Blood	Shortlist	[4]
	Seamus Heaney	District and Circle
	Hugo Williams	Dear Room
2007	Jean Sprackland	Tilt	Winner	[5]
	Ian Duhig	The Speed of Dark	Shortlist
	John Fuller	The Space of Joy
	Daljit Nagra	Look We Have Coming to Dover!
2008	Adam Foulds	The Broken Word	Winner	[6]
	Ciarán Carson	For All We Know	Shortlist
	Kathryn Simmonds	Sunday at the Skin Launderette
	Greta Stoddart	Salvation Jane
2009	Christopher Reid	A Scattering	Winner	[7][8]
	Clive James	Angels Over Elsinore	Shortlist
	Katharine Kilalea	One Eye'd Leigh
	Ruth Padel	Darwin: A Life in Poems
2010	Jo Shapcott	Of Mutability	Winner	[9][10]
	Roy Fisher	Standard Midland	Shortlist
	Robin Robertson	The Wrecking Light
	Sam Willetts	New Light for the Old Dark
2011	Carol Ann Duffy	The Bees	Winner	[11][12]
	David Harsent	Night	Shortlist	[13]
	Jackie Kay	Fiere
	Sean O'Brien	November
2012	Kathleen Jamie	The Overhaul	Winner	[14][15]
	Sean Borodale	Bee Journal	Shortlist
	Julia Copus	The World's Two Smallest Humans
	Selima Hill	People Who Like Meatballs
2013	Michael Symmons Roberts	Drysalter	Winner	[16][17]
	Clive James	Dante, The Divine Comedy	Shortlist	[18][19]
	Helen Mort	Division Street
	Robin Robertson	Hill of Doors
2014	Jonathan Edwards	My Family and Other Superheroes	Winner	[20][21]
	Colette Bryce	The Whole and Rain-domed Universe	Shortlist	[22][23]
	Lavinia Greenlaw	A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde
	Kei Miller	The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion
2015	Don Paterson	40 Sonnets	Winner	[24]
	Andrew McMillan	Physical	Shortlist	[25]
	Kate Miller	The Observances
	Neil Rollinson	Talking Dead
2016	Alice Oswald	Falling Awake	Winner	[26]
	Melissa Lee-Houghton		Shortlist	[27]
	Denise Riley
	Kae Tempest
2017	Helen Dunmore	Inside the Wave	Winner	[28][29]
	Kayo Chingonyi	Kumukanda	Shortlist	[30][31]
	Sinéad Morrissey	On Balance
	Richard Osmond	Useful Verses
2018	J. O. Morgan	Assurances	Winner	[32][33]
	Zaffar Kunial	Us	Shortlist	[34]
	Richard Scott	Soho
	Hannah Sullivan	Three Poems
2019	Mary Jean Chan	Flèche	Winner	[35][36]
	Jay Bernard	Surge	Shortlist	[37]
	Paul Farley	The Mizzy
	John McCullough	Reckless Paper Birds
2020	Eavan Boland	The Historians	Winner	[38][39][40]
	Caroline Bird	The Air Year	Shortlist
	Rachel Long	My Darling from the Lions
	Martha Sprackland	Citadel
2021	Hannah Lowe	The Kids	Winner	[41][42][43]
	Raymond Antrobus	All the Names Given	Shortlist	[44]
	Kayo Chingonyi	A Blood Condition
	Victoria Kennefick	Eat or We Both Starve