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Alice Oswald wins the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry
Alice Oswald has been announced as the first winner of the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for her collection Weeds and Wildflowers.
"This is a really generous and revolutionary gesture by Carol Ann Duffy. I love the way she is re-inventing the Laureateship. I am of course deeply honoured to be given an award with Ted Hughes’ name on it and I'm pleased that it’s an award that dips beyond the mainstream into some of the more unusual poetic channels. The shortlist is a brilliant one. thankyou to the judges and to all those members of the Poetry Society who put forward our names. thankyou also to Jessica Greenman, whose etchings are more than half the making of Weeds and Wildflowers. But the biggest thankyou – a continuous and increasing thankyou – is to Carol Ann Duffy herself." - Alice Oswald.
Shortlist
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. Judges Imtiaz Dharker, Tim Supple and Jo Shapcott shortlisted the following seven works from over fifty nominations made by Poetry Society and Poetry Book Society members:
Jackie Kay for Maw Broon Monologues (performed at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow). A full-length performance combining rhythmic verse, music and theatre.
Dannie Abse for New Selected Poems 1949-2009: Anniversary Collection (published by Hutchinson 2009). A celebration of the 60th anniversary of Dannie Abse’s first collection After Every Green Thing.
Paul Farley for Field Recordings: BBC Poems (1998-2008) (published by Donut Press 2009). This work brings together Farley’s broadcast poetry for the BBC over a ten-year period.
John Glenday for Grain (published by Picador 2009). Fourteen years in the making Grain is at times delicately lyrical and at times playful or surreal.
Alice Oswald for Weeds and Wild Flowers (published by Faber and Faber 2009). This is a magical meeting of the visionary poems of Alice Oswald and the darkly beautiful etchings of Jessica Greenman.
Chris Agee for Next To Nothing (published by Salt Publishing 2009). Next to Nothing records the years following the death of a beloved child in 2001.
Andrew Motion for The Cinder Path (published by Faber and Faber 2009). Motion’s collection offers a spectrum of lyrics, love poems and elegies all exploring how people cope with threats to and in the world around them.
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Ted Hughes
Carol Ann Duffy"I'm delighted, with the assistance of Buckingham Palace and the Poetry Society, to be founding this new award for poetry. With the permission of Carol Hughes, the award is named in honour of Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate, and one of the greatest twentieth century poets for both children and adults.”
Carol Ann Duffy
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.
Members of the Poetry Society or the Poetry Book Society were invited to nominate a living UK poet, working in any form, who has made the most exciting contribution to poetry in the past 12 months.
The £5,000 prize was donated by Carol Ann Duffy, funded from the annual honorarium which the Poet Laureate traditionally receives from H M the Queen.
2009 Judges: Imtiaz Dharker, Tim Supple and Jo Shapcott
Eligibility & Rules
- Nominated work should have received its first publication or public presentation between 1 January and 31 December 2009.
- Eligible works include, but are not limited to, poetry collections (for adults or children), individual published poems, radio poems, verse translations, verse dramas, verse novels, libretti, film poems, and public poetry pieces.
- For their work to be eligible, a nominated poet must be resident in the UK or have UK nationality.
- Self-published work is not eligible.
- No one can nominate themselves.
- No individual may make more than one nomination per year.
- Nominators must be Poetry Society or Poetry Book Society members, and include their membership number with their nomination.
- Note: Nominations are not votes, ie nominations help bring work to the judges’ attention, and play a vital role in helping the judges gauge the impact the work has had, but the judges’ final decision will not necessarily mirror the number of nominations a particular work received.
- The judges' decision shall be final.
How to nominate
PLEASE NOTE: The 2010 Award is not yet accepting nominations.
- Name the one poet you consider to have made the most exciting contribution to poetry in the previous 12 months.
- The nominator should write a supporting statement of up to 75 words, describing the work for which the nomination has been made, and explaining why it is a significant and exciting contribution to poetry.
- In cases relating to non-printed forms, some appropriate documentary evidence must exist for the judges to be able to assess - eg script, cd, dvd, podcast or photograph.
- Nominators’ names will remain anonymous.
- Download a nomination form and email to tedhughesaward (AT) poetrysociety.org.uk or post to Helen Taylor, The Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BX.
If you require further details please contact Helen Taylor: tedhughesaward (AT) poetrysociety.org.uk
Further information about the Award
New Work in Poetry
Not all new poetry can be found in books. It's on the stage, on the radio, on film and TV, in art galleries, and around us in the built environment.
2004 Gwyneth Lewis: Wales Millenium Centre
Gwyneth Lewis wrote the monumental inscription for Cardiff’s Millenium Centre. Each letter is six-foot tall and formed of stained glass, set in glass-reinforced gypsum. The words reflect the architecture, purpose and setting of the building.
There are inscriptions in Welsh and English:
‘In these Stones Horizons Sing’ and ‘Creu Gw ir fel Gwydr o Ffwrnais Awen’ (translation: 'Creating truth like glass from inspiration's furnace').
1999 Gillian Clarke and Menna Elfyn: Tonypandy Column
Menna Elfyn and Gillian Clarke wrote lines for the column in Tonypandy, Wales which was commissioned by Artworks Wales and made by sculptor Howard Bowcott.
The words are inscribed on a band of black slate which is the thickness of the 'two foot eight' seam in which 31 men were killed at the Cambrian Mine in 1965 - the last major coal mine explosion in Wales.
1998 Ted Hughes: Phèdre
Phèdre, Ted Hughes’s new verse translation of Racine’s play was premiered at the National Theatre just weeks before the Poet Laureate’s death in 1998. The text is published by Faber & Faber. The play was restaged in 2009, starring Helen Mirren in the title role.
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