Nichols has been the recipient of several awards for her poetry, beginning with the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1983, for I is a Long Memoried Woman, and her work is on several GCSE syllabuses.[6]
In 2021, Nichols was the recipient of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, on the basis of her body of work, chosen by a committee chaired by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage.[7][8]