Carcanet Press - Dane Holt

Dane Holt

About
Reviews
Awards

Dane Holt holds a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast. His debut pamphlet, Many Professional Wrestlers Never Retire (Lifeboat Press), was published in 2023 and was a Poetry Book Society Autumn Pamphlet Choice. In 2019, he won the inaugural Brotherton Prize, awarded by the University of Leeds. He was the 2023 Ciaran Carson Publishing Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Belfast.

'Holt is part of a feisty new generation of Northern Irish poets, and his stunning debut collection nods to Samuel Beckett with its injunction to fail. ... In these dazzling re-envisagings of a state at war with itself, Holt finds a way to talk directly about what other poets have only been able to allude to, and in doing so he offers us, through absurdist comedy, a fleeting glimpse of a way out of the mess.'
Philip Terry, The Guardian 'In Dane Holt's Father's Father's Father there are delicate parables, surreal narrations, moving and direct lyrics, and cameos from unexpected quarters (Tammy Wynette? John Cena?), but wherever the poems go, the tone is convincing, the line controlled, and a lovely obliquity pushes against the emotional pressure. It's a wonderfully inventive and auspicious debut.'
Nick Laird 'Dane Holt zooms us through the chaos of grief, suspends us from our heels and makes us weep, then forces us to laugh against our will. One of the best debuts I've read in years.'
Caroline Bird

Awards won by Dane Holt Commended, 2025 A Poetry Book Society Spring Recommendation
(Father's Father's Father)

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Dane Holt Books by this author: Father's Father's Father About Reviews Awards Dane Holt holds a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast. His debut pamphlet, Many Professional Wrestlers Never Retire (Lifeboat Press), was published in 2023 and was a Poetry Book Society Autumn Pamphlet Choice. In 2019, he won the inaugural Brotherton Prize, awarded by the University of Leeds. He was the 2023 Ciaran Carson Publishing Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Belfast. 'Holt is part of a feisty new generation of Northern Irish poets, and his stunning debut collection nods to Samuel Beckett with its injunction to fail. ... In these dazzling re-envisagings of a state at war with itself, Holt finds a way to talk directly about what other poets have only been able to allude to, and in doing so he offers us, through absurdist comedy, a fleeting glimpse of a way out of the mess.' Philip Terry, The Guardian 'In Dane Holt's Father's Father's Father there are delicate parables, surreal narrations, moving and direct lyrics, and cameos from unexpected quarters (Tammy Wynette? John Cena?), but wherever the poems go, the tone is convincing, the line controlled, and a lovely obliquity pushes against the emotional pressure. It's a wonderfully inventive and auspicious debut.' Nick Laird 'Dane Holt zooms us through the chaos of grief, suspends us from our heels and makes us weep, then forces us to laugh against our will. One of the best debuts I've read in years.' Caroline Bird Awards won by Dane Holt Commended, 2025 A Poetry Book Society Spring Recommendation (Father's Father's Father)	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog We've Moved! read more Books of the Year read more One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more
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