Carol Ann Duffy launches Ted Hughes award
Poet laureate uses stipend to fund prize rewarding 'most exciting' contribution to poetry in all its forms
Alison Flood writing in the guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 July 2009
Poet laureate uses stipend to fund prize rewarding 'most exciting' contribution to poetry in all its forms
Alison Flood writing in the guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 July 2009
he Queen receives Carol Ann Duffy at Buckingham Palace. Photograph: Johnny Green/PA
Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has announced a new prize celebrating poetry in all its forms, following her first audience with the Queen today.
Funded by Duffy's donation of her yearly £5,750 stipend as laureate to the Poetry Society, the prize, known as the Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry, will be awarded annually throughout Duffy's 10-year term as laureate. Duffy had already made clear that she "didn't want to take on what basically is an honour on behalf of other poets and complicate it with money". "I thought it was better to give it back to poetry," she said in May, when she was chosen as laureate.
The prize, worth £5,000, will go to a UK poet working in any form – including poetry collections for adults and children, individual poems, radio poems, translations and verse dramas – who has made the "most exciting contribution" to poetry that year. "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 20th-century poets for both children and adults," said Duffy in a statement announcing the new prize.
Funded by Duffy's donation of her yearly £5,750 stipend as laureate to the Poetry Society, the prize, known as the Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry, will be awarded annually throughout Duffy's 10-year term as laureate. Duffy had already made clear that she "didn't want to take on what basically is an honour on behalf of other poets and complicate it with money". "I thought it was better to give it back to poetry," she said in May, when she was chosen as laureate.
The prize, worth £5,000, will go to a UK poet working in any form – including poetry collections for adults and children, individual poems, radio poems, translations and verse dramas – who has made the "most exciting contribution" to poetry that year. "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 20th-century poets for both children and adults," said Duffy in a statement announcing the new prize.
The full story at The Guardian online.
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