The Ted Hughes Award For New Work In Poetry 2014 Shortlist Is Announced

Press Release

Love and loss – the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2014 shortlist is announced

Patience Agbabi, Imtiaz Dharker, Carrie Etter, Andrew Motion and Alice Oswald are today announced as the shortlisted poets for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2014

The Poetry Society's Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry seeks to recognise excellence in new poetry. The Award acknowledges poetry that goes beyond just the page, highlighting exciting and outstanding contributions made by poets to our cultural life in 2014. This year the cultural and the everyday converge to create a thrilling shortlist.

Selected from a wide range of work across all media, this richly diverse shortlist looks at the effects of the mundane and the momentous, retelling myths and reimagining tales to make them relevant again. From examining conflict to confronting the effect of putting a child up for adoption, this year's shortlisted poets have poured something personal into each of the works and the result is a series of voices that speak to, and for, all of us. 

Established in 2009 by Poet Laureate and Vice President of the Poetry Society, Carol Ann Duffy, the £5,000 prize is funded with the annual honorarium the Poet Laureate traditionally receives from HM The Queen. The award is one of the only prizes to acknowledge the wide range of work being produced by poets – not just in books, but beyond. Previous winners of the £5,000 prize include Maggie Sawkins in 2013 for Zones of Avoidance and Kate Tempest in 2012 for Brand New Ancients.

The final winner will be revealed at an awards ceremony at the Savile Club, Mayfair, London on Thursday 2nd April 2015. The winners of The Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition will also be announced at the ceremony.