Longlist for UK Poet Laureate’s The Laurel Prize announced.
UK Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, and the Poetry School, are delighted to announce the longlist for the annual nature and ecopoetry prize, The Laurel Prize. The prize is funded by Simon Armitage’s Laureate’s honorarium, which he receives annually from the King, and is run by the Poetry School. It is awarded to the best collection of environmental or nature poetry published that year. The longlist – judged this year by the poets Mona Arshi (Chair), Caroline Bird, and Kwame Dawes– is as follows (in alphabetical order):
- Rachael Allen God Complex (Faber & Faber)
- Janette Ayachi QuickFire, Slow Burning (Pavilion Poetry)
- Dylan Brennan Let the Dead (Banshee Press)
- John Burnside Ruin Blossom (Jonathan Cape)
- Will Burns Natural Burial Ground (Little Brown Book Group)
- Hannah Copley Lapwing (Pavilion Poetry)
- R K Fauth A Dream in Which I Am Playing with Bees (Texas Tech University Press)
- Isabel Galleymore Baby Schema (Carcanet Press)
- Seán Hewitt Rapture’s Road (Jonathan Cape)
- Ian Humphreys Tormentil (Nine Arches Press)
- Megan Kitching At the Point of Seeing (Otago University Press)
- Charlotte Shevchenko Knight Food for the Dead (Jonathan Cape)
- David Nash No Man’s Land (The Dedalus Press)
- Michael Ondaatje A Year of Last Things (Jonathan Cape)
- Rowan Ricardo Phillips Silver (Faber & Faber)
- K Patrick Three Births (Granta Books)
- Robyn Maree Pickens Tung (Otago University Press)
- Maya C. Popa Wound is the Origin of Wonder (Pan Macmillan)
- Taz Rahman East of the Sun, West of the Moon (Seren Books)
- Brian Turner The Wild Delight of Wild Things (Alice James Books)
- Becky Varley Winter Dangerous Enough (Salt Press)
The prize awards £5,000 (1st prize), £2,000 (2nd prize), and £1,000 (3rd prize). There’s also a £500 award for each of the Best First Collection UK and Best International First Collection. In addition, winners will receive a commission from National Landscapes to create a poem based on their favourite UK landscape. This year’s Laurel Prize Ceremony will take place on Saturday 19 October at 5.30-6.30pm and there will be a free live stream.
TICKETS: Summit: A Poetry School Festival • Poetry School
On Saturday 19 October, Summit opens at Yorkshire Sculpture Park with a series of poetry workshops, an introductory workshop and readings.
On the second day of the festival, Sunday 20 October, Summit will move to the University of Leeds Poetry Centre, where events include an Introductory Climate Summit and a series of panel readings. The National Poetry Centre will close the festival with a special in-conversation event featuring Zaffar Kunial and Karen McCarthy Woolf.
Further Information: Summit: A Poetry School Festival • Poetry School