T S Eliot Prize for Poetry Winner Due Next Week. Winners 1993 to present

The T S Eliot Prize for Poetry was inaugurated in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and honour its founding poet.

Described as ‘the prize most poets want to win' (Andrew Motion, then Poet Laureate) and ‘the world's top poetry award' (Irish Independent), it is awarded to the author of the best new collection of poetry published in the UK and Ireland each year.

The winner receives £15,000 and each of the shortlisted poets receives £1,000.

The winner of the 2010 prize is going to be announced next week in the UK and has precipitated a complete panic attack for Tragic who realised that  he has yet to get to the 2003 winner Don Paterson's    Landing Light   which is in the pile let alone any winners since. In fact, looking back over the list  the last Eliot winner that he enjoyed was Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters from 1998.

The wheels are starting to full off. Past winners below for not just for posterity but as a "to read" reminder for poetry lovers!

Tragic has just got round to cover the  award over at Literary Awards UK.

The winner will be announced on the evening of Monday 24 January 2011 at the T S Eliot Prize award ceremony, which will be held in the Courtyard at the Wallace Collection. Mrs Valerie Eliot will present the winner with a cheque for £15,000 and each of the shortlisted poets will receive £1,000 in recognition of their achievement - the latter at least sufficient for a new box of quills.

2010 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry.

Judges Anne Stevenson (Chair), Bernardine Evaristo and Michael Symmons Roberts have chosen 6 collections from the record 123 books submitted by publishers, which join the 4 PBS Choices to make up the 10 collections on the shortlist:

Seeing Stars                        Simon Armitage (Faber)
The Mirabelles                      Annie Freud (Picador)
You                                      John Haynes (Seren)
Human Chain                       Seamus Heaney (Faber)
What the Water Gave Me      Pascale Petit (Seren)
The Wrecking Light               Robin Robertson (Picador)
Rough Music                         Fiona Sampson (Carcanet)
Phantom Noise                     Brian Turner (Bloodaxe)
White Egrets                        Derek Walcott (Faber)
New Light for the Old Dark    Sam Willetts (Jonathan Cape)

Anne Stevenson said:

"The judges have found this an exceptional year for poetry, with a record number of entries, and have agreed on a strong shortlist which is unusually eclectic in form and theme."
The winner will be announced on the evening of Monday 24 January 2011 at the T S Eliot Prize award ceremony, which will be held in the Courtyard at the Wallace Collection. Mrs Valerie Eliot will present the winner with a cheque for £15,000 and each of the shortlisted poets will receive £1,000 in recognition of their achievement.
Previous winners:
2009        Philip Gross           The Water Table

2008        Jen Hadfield          Nigh-No-Place

2007        Sean O'Brien         The Drowned Book

2006        Seamus Heaney    District and Circle

2005        Carol Ann Duffy     Rapture

2004        George Szirtes      Reel

2003        Don Paterson        Landing Light

2002        Alice Oswald          Dart

2001        Anne Carson         The Beauty of the Husband

2000        Michael Longley     The Weather in Japan

1999        Hugo Williams        Billy's Rain

1998        Ted Hughes           Birthday Letters

1997        Don Paterson        God's Gift to Women

1996        Les Murray            Subhuman Redneck Poems

1995        Mark Doty              My Alexandria

1994        Paul Muldoon         The Annals of Chile

1993        Ciaran Carson        First Language: Poems