Szirtes wins poetry award - annual award, encourages and celebrates outstanding new poetry for children

01.05.13 | Benedicte Page - The Bookseller

Hungarian-born poet George Szirtes’ In the Land of Giants, illustrated by Helen Szirtes and published by Salt, has won the 2013 Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) Poetry Award.
The annual award, established in 2003, encourages and celebrates outstanding new poetry for children.

In the Land of the Giants, which includes poems translated from Hungarian, centres on a series of poems in which characters feel small and insignificant in a big world.
Troubadour editorial director Fiona Waters, who co-judged the prize, said: “This is what real poetry for children is all about—challenging, mysterious, profoundly thought-provoking and absolutely no cheap easy laughs, no snot, no bums, nothing remotely patronising.
"Children will come back to this book time and time again, and the images will haunt their dreams.”

Also judging were poet Rachel Rooney; Morag Styles, professor of children’s poetry at the University of Cambridge; and Julia Eccleshare, the co-director of CLPE.

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