Sunday, January 24, 2016

TS Eliot prize row: is winner too young, beautiful - and Chinese?

Poet Sarah Howe’s 2016 TS Eliot prize win has been questioned by a sexist and sceptical literary press, but as the activity around the #derangedpoetess hashtag shows, we poets have had enough


Poet Sarah Howe, who won both the TS Eliot and the Young Writer of the Year Award this year
Poet Sarah Howe, who won both the TS Eliot and the Young Writer of the Year Award this year. Photograph: Hayley Madden/FMcM/PA
When the UK’s top prize for poetry, the TS Eliot Prize, was awarded to first-time poet Sarah Howe for her book Loop of Jade (Chatto) earlier this month, a whoop of joy went up in the room. Later at the party, I heard someone say: “I wonder how long it will be before everyone begins to hate her.” Not long, as it happens.

Three dodgy newspaper articles and a trending Twitter hashtag – #derangedpoetess – later, literary press is making clear its views on poets who are a) women, b) young, c) well-educated, and d) not fully white. Howe ticks all boxes: she is 32, a Cambridge-educated academic currently at Harvard, and is half Chinese. Born in Hong Kong, she came to the UK when she was nine; Loop of Jade deals with her dual cultural heritage and her mother’s difficult family history. She also happens to be – it shouldn’t matter, but apparently it does – rather beautiful.
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