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Poetry Matters

News & Events

June 2008

New Tower Poetry Facebook Group

Tower Poetry has started a Facebook Group to keep you up-to-date with what we're doing. You can comment on our latest reviews, start your own discussion topic, or just leave a message on our Wall.

Applications for the Tower Poetry Summer School 2008 are now closed

The successful 2008 Summer School's applicants are being asked to confirm that they can join the group - we had lots of applicants but sadly are limited to 12. We're sorry that there are some disappointed poets but don't be discouraged from applying next year if you're within the age limit.

May 2008

Applications Open for The Tower Poetry Summer School 2008

Tower Poetry is offering young poets between the ages of 18-23 the chance to attend The annual Tower Poetry Summer School to be held at Christ Church, Oxford, between 26-29 August, 2008.  The residential school will give 12 young people the opportunity to develop their own writing and critical skills through a series of exciting and challenging workshops run by experienced tutors. Visit the Summer School page for further information and details on how to apply.

Update 19 June: applications are now closed and all places have been filled.

April 2008

Christopher Tower Poetry Prize Winners 2008

Updated 30 April: Listen to the prize winners read their poems (MP3 download)

Updated 21 April: photographs from the prize ceremony at Christ Church College are now available, along with an exclusive digital-only collection of the winning poems (pdf).

Thank you to all the entrants for this year’s Christopher Tower Poetry Prize. The theme of ‘Change’ captured the interest of an extremely high number of 16-18 year olds. The winners are:

First prize
Emily Middleton (The King’s School, Macclesfield) The Five Stages

Second prize
Ashley McMullin (The Sixth Form College, Colchester) Journey to Hilly Country

Third prize
Nina Bahadur (St Paul’s Girls’ School, London) Heat

Highly commended
Richard O’Brien (Bourne Grammar School, Lincolnshire) Texting in Church
Amelia Penny (South Hampstead High School, London) Quickening
Charlotte Geater (Northgate High School, Ipswich) We Beasts
Anna Savory (Fort Pitt Grammar School, Chatham) Sestina 102 :26

See Press Release

January 2008

Jean Sprackland has won the poetry category of the 2007 Costa Book awards with Tilt [review of Tilt by Jean Sprackland ].  The other three books on the shortlist were The Speed of Dark by Ian Duhig [review of Ian Duhig The Speed of Dark], The Space of Joy by John Fuller, and Look We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra [review].

November 2007

The shortlist for the annual T.S. Eliot Prize has been announced.  This year, the favoured poets are:

Ian Duhig for The Speed of Dark (Picador) [review of Ian Duhig The Speed of Dark]
Alan Gillis for Hawks and Doves (Gallery) [review of Alan Gillis Hawks and Doves]
Sophie Hannah for Pessimism for Beginners (Carcanet) [review of Sophie Hannah Pessimism for Beginners]
Mimi Khalvati for The Meanest Flower (Carcanet)
Frances Leviston for Public Dream (Picador) [review ]
Sarah Maguire for The Pomegranates of Kandahar (Chatto) [review of Sarah Maguire The Pomegranates of Kandahar]
Edwin Morgan for A Book of Lives (Carcanet)
Sean O'Brien for The Drowned Book (Picador) [review of Sean O'Brien The Drowned Book ]
Fiona Sampson for Common Prayer (Carcanet) [review of Fiona Sampson Common Prayer]
Matthew Sweeney for Black Moon (Jonathan Cape) [review of Matthew Sweeney Black Moon]

The winner of the £15 000 prize will be announced on 14th January.

October 2007

Sean O'Brien has won the 2007 Forward prize for his The Drowned Book (review of Sean O'Brien The Drowned Book). It's the third time O'Brien has been lucky in the Forward Prizes (or more, if you count his award for the Best Individual Poem in 2006). This year's prize for Best First Collection went to Dalgit Nagra for Look! We have coming to Dover! (review of Dalgit Nagra Look! We have coming to Dover!), and the prize for Best Individual Poem went to 'Dunt' by Alice Oswald.

August 2007

Forward Prize Shortlists Announced

The shortlist for the £10,000 Forward Prize for the best collection features Jack Mapanje (Beast of Nalunga), Luke Kennard (The Harbour Beyond the Movie), Adam Thorpe (Birds with a Broken Wing - review of Birds with a Broken Wing by Adam Thorpe) , John Burnside (Gift Songs - review of Gift Songs by John Burnside), Eavan Boland (Domestic Violence), and Sean O'Brien (The Drowned Book).

The contenders for the £5,000 prize for a first collection are Joanna Boulter, Daljit Nagra (review of Look We Have Coming to Dover by Daljit Nagra), Eleanor Rees, and Melanie Challenger, while the nominees for the £1,000 for the best individual poem are David Harsent ('The Hut in Question'), Lorraine Mariner ('Thursday'), Alice Oswald ('Dunt'), Myra Schneider ('Goulash'), Jean Sprackland ('The Birkdale Nightingale'), and Carole Satyamurti ('The Day I Knew I Wouldn't Live Forever').

July 2007

2007 Cardiff International Poetry Competition

Colette Bryce is the winner of the 2007 Cardiff International Poetry Competition. She receives a £5,000 prize for her poem, 'Self Portrait in a Broken Wing Mirror'.

Michael Rosen appointed as new Children's Laureate

Michael Rosen has been appointed as the new Children's Laureate in the UK, suceeding Jacqueline Wilson. Rosen is the first poet to take up this appointment which will run until 2009, and carries with it a bursary of £10,000. In accepting the role, Rosen said: 'I hope that I'll be able to boost all children's reading for pleasure, but also to give a special lift to the wonderful diverse world of poetry for children'.

Centre for Literacy in Primary Education prize for children's poetry

The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) has awarded its prize for children's poetry to The Thing That Mattered Most. Scottish Poems for Children, edited by Julie Johnstone, and published by the Scottish Poetry Library/Black and White Publishing.

Photos from W H Auden Day School

Pictures of the recent very successful day school on W H Auden which was held at Christ Church, and sponsored by Tower Poetry.

May 2007

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2007

James Fenton has been awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2007. The decision was made by a panel of scholars and authors which was chaired by the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion. Fenton is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was the Professor of Poetry at Oxford University from 1994-1999.

Poetry Library to re-open on 4 July

The Poetry Library in London will re-open in July after two years of closure to allow for the refurbishment of the Royal Festival Hall. The library will be officially re-opened on 4th July when Adrian Mitchell will discuss poetry with children from primary schools, and the library's new family reading club, Poetry Explorers, will be launched. The day will end with a reading by a number of well-known London poets. More information is available on 020 7921 0943.

March 2007

Award Winners Announced

The prestigious Northern Rock Foundation Writer’s Award has been won this year by the poet Sean O’Brien, who is also Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. The judges of the £60,000 award were the editor of Granta, Ian Jack, the poet John Burnside, and the novelist and critic, Bernadine Evaristo.

The £5,000 first prize in the National Poetry Competition has been awarded to Mike Barlow. Judged this year by John Burnside, Lee Harwood and Alice Oswald, the second and third prizes were given to John Latham and David Grubb.

The Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon has been given the biennial David Cohen Prize which acknowledges a lifetime’s achievement in literature. Part of the £40,000 prize requires the winner to choose a recipient of the Clarissa Luard Award, which is worth £12,500 for a literary organization that supports young writers or an individual writer under 35. Derek Mahon gave this award to his publisher, the Gallery Press, based in Co Meath.

February 2007

In celebration of W H Auden

W H Auden was an undergraduate at Christ Church in the 1920s, and returned to Oxford as Professor of Poetry in the late 1950s. Near the end of his life in the 1970s, he was again in residence at Christ Church.

To mark the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the Senior Common Room at Christ Church held a special gathering on 21st February at which Auden’s poems were read and memories of the poet were recollected by some of the people who knew him. Peter McDonald read out a poem written in celebration of W H Auden and his links with Christ Church. Read the poem 'Lines for W.H.Auden' in full.

Tower Poetry has 20 copies of the poem (which is printed in a beautiful limited edition of just 50 copies) available for sale at £20.00 (including postage and packing). If you would like to purchase a copy, please send a cheque, made payable to ‘Christ Church, Oxford’, to the Tower Poetry Office, Christ Church, Oxford, OX1 1DP.

Oxford Literary Festival

Glyn Maxwell and Jo Shapcot - In Celebration of Auden and MacNeice
Sunday, 25th March, 6.30 pm. Christ Church, Oxford.

As part of this year’s Oxford Literary Festival, Tower Poetry is sponsoring a reading by Jo Shapcott and Glyn Maxwell in celebration of W H Auden and Louis MacNeice, whose centenaries fall this year. The event offers a rare opportunity to hear two of today’s most acclaimed poets read their own work alongside poetry they love. The reading will be chaired, in Auden’s own college, by Tower Poetry’s Peter McDonald.

For information on how to book tickets for this event, go to the Oxford Literary Festival website: www.sundaytimes-oxfordliteraryfestival.co.uk

January 2007

T S Eliot Prize , Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and Costa Awards Winners Announced

Seamus Heaney has won the £10,000 T S Eliot Prize for his collection District and Circle (Faber & Faber) (Review of District and Circle by Seamus Heaney). The competition judges were Sean O’Brien, Sophie Hannah and Gwyneth Lewis.

Alice Oswald’s third collection, Woods, etc. (Faber & Faber) ( Review of Woods etc by Alice Oswald), has been awarded the 2006 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. The competition was judged by Neil Corcoran, Lavinia Greenlaw and Ciaran Carson. Oswald’s second collection, Dart, was the winner of the T S Eliot Prize in 2002.

The winner of the poetry section of the Costa Awards (formerly, the Whitbread Prize), is John Haynes for Letter to Patience (Seren). The judging panel comprised Elaine Feinstein, Jeremy Noel-Tod, and Deryn Rees-Jones.

December 2006

Costa Book Awards (formerly the Whitbread Awards) Shortlist

The shortlisted books for the poetry section of the Costa Book Awards (formerly the Whitbread Awards) are: The Book of Blood by Vicki Feaver (Cape) (Review of The Book of Blood by Vicki Feaver), Letter to Patience by John Haynes (Seren), District and Circle by Seamus Heaney (Faber) (Review of District and Circle by Seamus Heaney), and Dear Room by Hugo Williams (Faber).

November 2006

The shortlist for the £10,000 T S Eliot Prize is as follows:

The prize will be presented by Mrs Valerie Eliot on 15 January 2007.

T S Eliot Prize Shadowing Scheme

The Poetry Book Society and emagazine are offering A Level students the chance to shadow this year's prize and take part in a student poll to vote for the winning collection. Students are also invited to write a short piece outlining their reasons for choosing a particular collection as the prizewinner. The deadline for entries is 15 December 2006, and part of the student prize will be an invitation to meet the winning poet and tickets to the Readings and Award Ceremony on 14th and 15 January. Full details are available from the Poetry Book Society.

Jerwood First Collection Prize

Roger Moulson is the winner of the £3,000 Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize for Waiting for the Night Rowers (Enitharmon). The other shortlisted candidates were Allan Crosbie (Outswimming the Eruption), Jasmine Donahaye (Misappropriations), Togara Muzanenhamo (Spirit Brides - Review of Spirit Brides by Togara Muzanenhamo) and Jane Yeh (Marabou - Review of Jane Yeh, Marabou ).

Arvon International Poetry Competition

The shortlisted poets for this year's Arvon International Poetry competition are: Valerie Clarke, Claudia Daventry, Sian Hughes, Ruth Padel, Rodney Pybus, Siriol Troup. The announcement of the winning poet will be made on 1 December.

October 2006

2006 Ruth Lilley Poetry Fellowships

The Poetry Foundation in the US has announced that two student poets, Colin Cheney and David Krump, have won the 2006 Ruth Lilley Poetry Fellowships. These are among the largest awards offered to aspiring poets in the US, and each Fellowship provides $15,000 to help the recipients continue their study and writing of poetry.

Colin Cheney is currently studying and teaching poetry at New York University, whilst David Krump is working towards a Master of Studies degree in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford.

To be eligible for the award, a student must be a US citizen under 30, and must not have received an advanced degree before the end of the year in which the fellowship is given. The Ruth Lilley Fellowship programme is organised and administered by the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, the publisher of Poetry magazine which is the oldest monthly poetry magazine published in English.

2006 New Writing Ventures Awards

Linda Black has won the poetry section in the 2006 New Writing Ventures awards. She wins £5,000 and a place on the Ventures Development Programme. The other shortlisted candidates for poetry were Patrick Brandon and Mark Waldon, and judges for this section were Michael Laskey, Esther Morgan and Roddy Lumsden.

2006 Forward Prizes for Poetry

Robin Robertson has secured the £10,000 Forward Prize for poetry with his collection, Swithering (Review of Swithering by Robin Robertson). He is the first poet to have won both the best collection prize and the best first collection (in 1997 for 'A Painted Field'). This year's first collection prize, worth £5,000, went to Tishani Doshi for 'Countries of the Body', while the £1,000 prize for the best single poem went to Sean O'Brien for 'Fantasia on a theme of James Wright'.

August 2006

The shortlist for the New Writing Ventures Awards 2006 has been announced.

The list features three poets, Linda Black, Mark Waldron and Patrick Brandon. The Chair of Judges for Poetry is Michael Laskey, and the winners of the awards will be announced on 25 September.

July 2006

Shortlists for the 2006 Forward poetry prizes announced

The shortlists for the 2006 Forward poetry prizes have been announced. This year’s judges are John Burnside, Moniza Alvi, Sebastian Faulks and Sam Leith, and the winners of the three categories in the competition will be announced on 4 October, the day before National Poetry Day.

The Forward Prize for the best collection (£10,000 prize):

The Felix Dennis Prize for the best first collection (£5,000 prize):

  • Countries of the Body by Tishani Doshi (Aark Arts)
  • Impossible Objects by Bill Greenwell (Cinnamon Press)
  • Call Centre Love Song by Ian Gregson (Salt Publishing)
  • Autumnologist by Anne Ryland (Arrowhead Press)
  • Stranded in Sub-Atomica by Tim Turnbull (Donut Press)
  • Boys’ Night Out In the Afternoon by Tim Wells (Donut Press)

The Forward Prize for best single poem (in memory of Michael Donaghy) (£1,000)

  • Requiem for a Princess by John Hartley Williams (London Review of Books)
  • Forest Encomia Of The South-West by John Kinsella (Poetry Review)
  • Fantasia on the Theme of James Wright by Sean O’Brien (Poetry Review)
  • The Cheapjack by Jacob Polley (Poetry London)
  • Trumpeldor Beach by Fiona Sampson (The Wolf)
  • Blaenafon Blue by Michael Arnold Williams (Poetry Wales)

June 2006

Recent Award Winners

Owen Sheers has received a Somerset Maugham Award, valued at £3,500, for his collection, Skirrid Hill (review of Owen Sheers Skirrid Hill). The awards are made to writers under 35, and the co-winners this year were Chris Cleave (Incendiary) and Zadie Smith (On Beauty).

The Eric Gregory Awards for 2006 have been won by Fiona Benson, Retta Bowen, Frances Leviston, Jonathan Morley and Eoghan Walls. The awards, each worth £4,000, are given to poets under the age of 30.

The Cholmondeley Awards, which are awarded in recognition of a poet’s body of writing, have gone this year to Alan Jenkins, Mimi Khalvati and Jo Shapcott.

The T S Eliot Prize 2006

The T S Eliot Prize 2006 will be judged by Sean O’Brien, who will serve as Chair of the judges, the poet and novelist Sophie Hannah and Welsh National Poet Gwyneth Lewis.
The judges will meet in early November to decide on a shortlist, and the winner will be announced on 15 January 2007.

May 2006

Former US poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Stanley Kunitz has died

Former US poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Stanley Kunitz has died aged 100. He was made poet laureate in 2000, and his last book was The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden.

April 2006

2006 Queen's Medal for Poetry

Fleur Adcock has been awarded the 2006 Queen's Medal for Poetry. The poet, who was born in New Zealand and now lives in the UK, received the award for her Collected Works 1960-2000. The medal is awarded for a collection published by a poet from the UK or the Commonwealth.

Tower Poetry at the Oxford Literary Festival, March 2006

Pictures of Tower Poetry’s recent successful and enjoyable festival reading featuring Jane Yeh, Frances Leviston and Peter McDonald.

January 2006

Whitbread Poetry Award

The Whitbread Poetry Award has been won by Christopher Logue for Cold Calls (Faber), which is the penultimate instalment of his account of the Iliad.

Carol Ann Duffy wins theT S Eliot Prize

Carol Ann Duffy is the winner of the £10,000 T S Eliot Prize with her collection Rapture ( Review of Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy, Poetry Matters December 2005). The competition judges were David Constantine, Kate Clanchy and Jane Draycott.

 

December 2005

Bridport Poetry Competition Winners

Carole Bromley took the £3,000 first prize in the Bridport Poetry Competition. Pauline Keith gained second place, Candy Neubert came third, and supplementary prizes were awarded to: Sally Clark, John Feakins, Lesley Bankes-Hughes, Helen Lovelock-Burke, Ellie Madden, Malcolm Moore, Samantha Peters, Julie-Ann Rowell, David Swann, and Patricia Zontelli.

November 2005

The shortlist for the Whitbread poetry prize has been announced

The shortlist for the Whitbread poetry prize includes:

  • Legion by David Harsent
  • Cold Calls by Christopher Logue
  • Lucky Day by Richard Price, and
  • Marabou by Jane Yeh (reviewed this month).

The judges of this category were Ciaran Carson, Suzie Doore, and Robert Potts. The winner will be announced on 4 January 2006

The Poetry Book Society has announced the shortlist for the T S Eliot Prize 2005

This year’s contenders for the £10,000 award are:

The judges, David Constantine, Kate Clanchy and Jane Draycott, will make their final decision on 16 January 2006.

The winner of the poetry section of the New Writing Partnership competition is Valeria Melchioretto

who receives £5,000. The submissions were judged by Andrew Motion, Jacob Polley and Eva Salzman, and the shortlisted writers in the competition are Rebecca O’Connor and Meryl Pugh.

To a Fault by Nick Laird has been awarded the 2005 Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize.

The 66 entries for the £2,000 prize were judged by Michael Laskey, Imogen Stubbs, and Christopher Reid. 

 

October 2005

The Forward Prize winners announced

The Forward Prize for the Best Collection has been awarded to David Harsent's 'Legion' (Faber). Helen Farish won the Best First Collection with 'Intimates' (Cape) (Poetry Matters Review, September), and the prize for the best single poem went to 'Billionth of a Second' by Paul Farley (published in 'North' magazine).

September 2005

Nick Laird longlisted for Guardian First Book Award

Nick Laird is the only poet to be included on the longlist for the Guardian First Book Award with his first collection, To A Fault (Poetry Matters review, February 2005). The shortlist will be announced on 3 November, and the winner of the £10,000 prize will be revealed during the first week of December.

August 2005

Colette Bryce has just been named as the next North East Literary Fellow.

Her two-year appointment will begin on 1 October.

July 2005

Forward Prize Shortlist

The shortlist for this year's £10,000 Forward Prize for a best collection is as follows:

The contenders for the first collection prize, which is worth £5,000, are:

The nominees for the best single poem category are: Stephen Knight, Sarah Maguire, Paul Farley, Katherine Pierpoint, and Peter Scupham.

The winners of each category will be announced on 5 October.

June 2005

Kathleen Jamie

has been awarded the Scottish Arts Council's £10,000 prize for Book of the Year for her collection The Tree House.

The Arts Councils of England, Scotland and Wales are to conduct a survey into publishing opportunities for black and Asian poets in the UK.

The 2004 'Next Generation Poets' list of the UK's twenty most exciting new poets featured only one black poet, Patience Agbabi. As a result, the Arts Councils have commissioned Spread the Word, an organisation which supports new writing, to discover why so few new culturally diverse poets are being published.

Recent Award Winners

In the 2005 Society of Authors awards, Anna Crowe and Lavinia Greenlaw each received £2,500 Travelling Scholarships. In the Cholmondeley awards, prizes of £2000 were awarded to Jane Duran, Christopher Logue, M R Peacocke and Neil Rollinson. The recipients of Eric Gregory awards this year are Melanie Challenger, Carolyn Jess, Luke Kennard and Jaim Smith. These awards, which can each be worth up to £5,000, are awarded to poets under 30.

The American poet Richard Eberhart has died at the age of 101.

A contemporary of I A Richards, F R Leavis and William Empson, in the course of his long career Eberhart won the three major American literary prizes: the Pulitzer, the Bollingen, and the National Book Award.

May 2005

Gwyneth Lewis to be inaugurated as the first national poet of Wales.

Gwyneth Lewis will be inaugurated as the first national poet of Wales in a ceremony on 30th May at the Hay Literary Festival. This appointment, which will last for one year with an option to renew for a second year, will be administered by Academi, the Welsh National Promotion Agency and Society of Writers.

The New Writing Partnership launches national prizes for new writers.

The New Writing Partnership in collaboration with Arts Council England has launched a series of national prizes for writers at the start of their careers. New Writing Ventures will choose a winner in poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and the winner in each category in 2005 will receive £5,000. The poetry selection panel features Andrew Motion, Jacob Polley and Eva Salzman. All writers over the age of 18 will be eligible to make a submission, and the deadline for entries is 1 July 2005. Further information about the prizes, and a downloadable entry form, can be found on the New Writing Partnership website: www.newwritingpartnership.org.uk.

April 2005

Poet, playwright and novelist Julia Darling has died. Her most recent collections were Apology for Absence and Sudden Collapses in Public Places (Arc).

Alan Gillis has won The Rupert and Eithne Strong First Book Award for his collection, Somebody Somewhere (Gallery). Poems from this collection were featured in Poetry Matters (December 2004).

March 2005

12th April - Tower Poetry will be holding a reading at the Oxford Literary Festival at 12.30pm in the Oxford Union

The event will be introduced by Jon Stallworthy, and will feature young poets who have been involved with Tower Poetry over the past five years. The poets reading at the event are: Caroline Bird, Olivia Cole, Frances Leviston, Anna Lewis, Helen Mort, Tim Smith-Laing, and Matthew Sperling.

Information on how to apply for tickets for the reading and the full programme of events at the Oxford Literary Festival is available on the festival's website: www.sundaytimes-oxfordliteraryfestival.co.uk.

Tower Poets: Five Years of Tower Poetry

The festival will also be the venue for the publication of the first collection from Tower Poetry featuring the work of all the young poets taking part in the reading. Copies of Tower Poets will be on sale at the festival, and are also available from the Tower Poetry office (see contact details). An order form can also be downloaded from the website.

Gillian Allnutt is the winner of this year's £60,000 Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award

She has published six collections, including 'Nantucket and the Angel' which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

January 2005

4th February - The Clutag Press and Tower Poetry are launching 'A Treatise of Civil Power', a major new work by Geoffrey Hill.

Limited edition copies of the book are available at a cost of £20.00 plus postage and packing. For further information and an order form, contact The Clutag Press via the website: www.clutagpress.com.

12 March - Tower Poetry is sponsoring a one-day conference, ‘Edward Thomas and Contemporary Poetry’, at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University . .

Edna Longley and Jem Poster will speak at the event, which has been organised by Professor Lucy Newlyn and Guy Cuthbertson. Many well-known contemporary poets such as Gillian Clarke, Michael Longley, Jamie McKendrick, Peter McDonald, Bernard O’Donoghue and Tom Paulin, will discuss Thomas and also read some of their own poetry that has been inspired by his work. The Poet Laureate Andrew Motion will also address the conference.

Tower Poetry is able to offer students between the ages of 16-18 years a limited number of free places at the full conference, as well as additional free places at the afternoon session where the poets will be reading their own work. If you would like to receive further information about the day and apply for places, please contact: Lesley Bankes-Hughes at Tower Poetry (01865 286591 or info@towerpoetry.org.uk).

Hungarian-born George Szirtes has won the £10,000 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry for his collection Reel.

Michael Symmons Roberts has won the poetry category in this year's Whitbread Book Awards with his collection Corpus.

Fiona Sampson is to be the next editor of Poetry Review, the magazine of the Poetry Society.

As well as writing poetry (her first collection Folding the Real was published by Seren), she also has a great interest in poetry in translation, and in the work of foreign poets.

 

November 2004

This month is an active one for poetry with the announcement of the shortlists for some of the major prizes in the literary calendar. At the beginning of November, Don Paterson also delivered this year's TS Eliot poetry lecture: The Dark Art of Poetry. The full text can be found on the Poetry Library's website.

The poetry shortlist for this year's Whitbread prize is as follows:

  • Leontia Flynn These Days
  • John Fuller Ghosts (see the review in Poetry Matters)
  • Matthew Hollis Ground Water
  • Michael Symmons Roberts Corpus

The winner of this category, which carries a prize of £5,000, will be announced on 6 January 2005, and will then go forward to be considered for the £25,000 Whitbread book of the year prize which will be revealed on 25 January.

The shortlist for the £10,000 TS Eliot Prize for Poetry is:

  • Colette Bryce The Full Indian Rope Trick
  • Kathryn Gray The Never-Never
  • Kathleen Jamie The Tree House
  • Michael Longley Snow Water
  • Ruth Padel The Soho Leopard
  • Tom Paulin The Road to Inver
  • Peter Porter Afterburner
  • Michael Symmons Roberts Corpus
  • George Szirtes Reel
  • John Hartley Williams Blues

The winner will be announced on 17 January 2005.

The winner of the £2,000 Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize

is Julia Casterton for The Doves of Finisterre, published by 'The Rialto'.

August 2004

Ted Kooser has been appointed the next US poet laureate.

He has written ten volumes of poetry, and his most recent collection, Delights and Shadows, was published earlier this year. Kooser takes over the role of laureate from Louise Gluck.

The Swansea Dylan Thomas Prize is to be launched on 27 October, the anniversary of the Welsh poet's birthday.

Valued at £60,000, the award will be one of the world's largest literary prizes. The competition will be open to writers under 30, and all categories of writing, including poetry, will be eligible for the prize.

The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz has died in Krakow at the age of 93.

The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980, Milosz documented the struggle against communism in the Eastern bloc, and lived in exile in France and the US for 30 years, before returning to Poland in 1989.

 

July 2004

Many congratulations to Dhruv Sookhoo who is the recipient of a Northern Writers' Award.

Dhruv, who won second prize in the 2002 Christopher Tower poetry competition and who also attended the first Christopher Tower summer school, receives £500 to develop his poetry writing. A former pupil of Emmanuel College, Gateshead, Dhruv is now studying architecture at Newcastle University.

This year's Eric Gregory Awards have been announced by the Society of Authors.

The awards are given to young poets under 30 whose submitted work (published or unpublished) shows promise. The winners in 2004 are:

  • Nick Laird (£8,000)
  • Elizabeth Manuel (£7,000)
  • Abi Curtis (£3,000)
  • Sophie Levy (£3,000)
  • Saradha Soobrayen (£3,000)

The Poetry Book Society has announced the names of the 2004 Next Generation Poets.

The selection was made by a panel of judges chaired by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, and the list features poets who have published their first book within the last 10 years, regardless of age.

The chosen poets are: Patience Agbabi, Amanda Dalton, Nick Drake, Jane Draycott, Paul Farley, Leontia Flynn (see this month's reviews), Matthew Francis, Sophie Hannah, Tobias Hill, Gwyneth Lewis, Alice Oswald, Pascale Petit, Jacob Polley, Deryn Rees-Jones, Maurice Riordan, Robin Robertson, Owen Sheers, Henry Shukman, Catherine Smith, Jean Sprackland.