@seasofme @Snowdrop07 Many thanks for your comments on my work and just for reading it in the first place!
Getting on the shortlist was quite a shock. Recognition of some kind is always nice but the greatest reward is just to know that people are reading your stuff and getting something out of it. Being on the shortlist just means that more people will read my work, so that's the real thrill.
Still, there must have been a lot of very fine collections that didn't quite make it, so there are plenty of hidden gems still waiting to be read. Judgements about poetry are always highly subjective; they change with fashions, seasons, time of day and the particular mood of the reader, so I just feel very lucky and honoured that the Attys judges felt my collection was worth putting alongside the other fine collections on their shortlist.