Sinead Morrissey wins the T S Eliot Prize
The Poetry Book SocietySpecialist book club founded by T S Eliot in 1953, which aims to offer the best new poetry published in the UK and Ireland. Members buy at 25% discount. The PBS has a handsome new website at www.poetrybooks.co.uk, which awards the T S Eliot Prize for Poetry, announced the 2013 winner on 13 January at an elegant award ceremony in the Courtyard of the Wallace Collection in London. Chair of the Judges Ian Duhig formally announced that the winner was Parallax by Sinéad Morrissey, published by Carcanet. This is the fourth time Sinéad has been up for the T S Eliot Prize, having previously been shortlisted in 2002, 2005 and 2009.
Judges Ian Duhig (Chair), Imtiaz Dharker and Vicki Feaver chose the winner from a strong shortlist after months of reading and deliberation. The poets on this year's star-studded shortlist have won over 35 prizes and awards between them, though only two, Anne Carson and George Szirtes, have previously won the T S Eliot Prize.
Ian Duhig said:
'In a year of brilliantly themed collections, the judges were unanimous in choosing Sinéad Morrissey's Parallax as the winner. Politically, historically and personally ambitious, expressed in beautifully turned language, her book is as many-angled and any-angled as its title suggests.'
Sinéad Morrissey is the author of five poetry collections, four of which - Between Here and There (2002); The State of the Prisons (2005); the PBS Choice Through the Square Window (2009); and Parallax (2013) - have been shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize. Parallax was published in 2013 and was also shortlisted for the 2013 Forward Prize for Best Collection. She lives in Belfast where she is Reader in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre and Belfast's inaugural Poet Laureate.
Sinead was presented with a cheque for £15,000 and each shortlisted poet received a cheque for £1,000 in recognition of their achievement in winning a place on the most prestigious shortlist in UK poetry. The award ceremony was preceded by the T S Eliot Prize Readings on Sunday 12th January, held in the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall. You can listen to the podcast of the ten poets taking part in the Readings on the PBS's YouTube page.
The PBS has also recently completed a nationwide T S Eliot Prize 20th Anniversary Tour, taking shortlisted and prize-winning poets to ten venues across the country. See the blog and accompanying short film at http://poetrybooksoc.wordpress.com.
