Jessica Traynor

Jessica Traynor is a poet and poetry editor at Banshee. Her collections include Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), which was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award, and The Quick (Dedalus Press, 2018) which was an Irish Times Book of the Year. Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, an Irish Times book of the year, and a Guardian Best Summer Read of 2022. It was shortlisted for the Yeats Society Sligo/ Irish Independent Poetry Prize. She is a 2025 EU Press Prize Laureate, was 2024 recipient of the Tundish Award from Field Day for contributions to the arts in Ireland, and the 2023 recipient of the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry. Other awards include the Listowel Poetry Prize, the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary, and Hennessy New Writer of the Year. Her fourth poetry collection, New Arcana, was published by Bloodaxe Books in September 2025.