Poetry newslog January 2005

January 18, 2006 January 18, 2005
TS Eliot Prize for Szirtes
Hungarian-born poet George Szirtes was awarded the £10,000 TS Eliot Prize for his collection Reel. Szirtes mastered English after being brought to Britain at the age of eight after the crushed Hungarian uprising of 1956, writes The Guardian. The TS Eliot judges praised his book as “a brilliantly virtuosic collection of deeply felt poems concerned with the personal impact of the dislocations and betrayals of history”.

January 6, 2005
Symmons Roberts wins Whitbread poetry prize
Michael Symmons Roberts has won the Whitbread poetry prize for his fourth collection Corpus, which “mixes mysticism, erotica and philosophy through life, death and resurrection,” writes the BBC. Symmons Roberts goes on to compete for the Whitbread Book of the Year title, worth £25,000, with the other category winners – first novel, novel, biography and children’s book. The overall winner will be announced on January 25.