Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry - further information
On Thursday 9 July 2009, Carol Ann Duffy had her first Audience with Her Majesty The Queen to mark her appointment as Poet Laureate. Duffy chose the occasion to announce a new award for poetry.
The annual honorarium the Poet Laureate traditionally receives from HM The Queen will instead be donated to to fund The Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.
The Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry will be awarded annually throughout the ten years of Carol Ann Duffy’s term as Poet Laureate. The £5000 prize will be awarded to a UK poet, working in any form, who has made the most exciting contribution to poetry in that year.
Eligible works include, but are not limited to, poetry collections (for adults or children), individual published poems, radio poems, verse translations, verse dramas, libretti, film poems, and public poetry pieces.
Nominations for the award will be made by members of the Poetry Society and Poetry Book Society, and the winner decided by a panel of three judges appointed by the Poet Laureate. The inaugural award will cover work which received its first publication or public presentation in the UK in 2009.
The winner of the first award will be announced in March 2010, alongside the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition.
The Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry seeks to recognise excellence in poetry, highlighting outstanding contributions made by poets to our cultural life.
"Through Carol Ann's generosity, and the support of Buckingham Palace, a wonderful opportunity has arisen to recognise the many ways in which poets enrich our cultural lives. It's been great fun devising this exciting new initiative with her, which we believe will make a significant impact in raising awareness of the range and vitality of contemporary poetry. It's a particular honour, in the Poetry Society's centenary year, to be launching an award which links the names of two such inspirational poets - Carol Ann Duffy and Ted Hughes."
Judith Palmer, Director, The Poetry Society
Poets react to the new award
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“This imaginative new award will take account of the scope of poetry in its many manifestations, in book form and beyond.”
Sean O’Brien
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“This is a generous and innovative new award, one which acknowledges all the ways we can carry the poem into the mind of the reader. This is typical of Carol Ann’s imaginative approach to developing the art, and builds on her predecessor’s democratic commitment to taking the best poetry wherever it can go.”
Don Paterson
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"Surely this is the prize many have been waiting for. Its width is wonderful: it sheds light on areas of poetry which are so deserving of general recognition, for example, poetry books published for children and works in translation."
Moniza Alvi
The Poetry Society
Currently celebrating its centenary, the Poetry Society was founded in 1909, to promote ‘a more general recognition and appreciation of poetry’. Since then, it has grown into one of Britain’s most dynamic arts organisations, representing British poetry both nationally and internationally. It currently has more than 3600 members around the world, publishes the leading poetry magazine Poetry Review, and has an extensive education programme. As well as the National Poetry Competition, it runs the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award (for 11-17 year-olds), the Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation, and the performance poetry championship SLAMbassadors UK.
Carol Ann Duffy is a Vice President of the Poetry Society.
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"The Poetry Society is the heart and hands of poetry in the UK – a centre which pours out energy to all parts of the poetry-body, and a dexterous set of operations which arrange and organise poetry’s various manifestations. It has a long and distinguished history, and has never been so vital, or so vitalising, as it is now."
Sir Andrew Motion
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