T S Eliot Prize for Poetry 2012

Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of competitive poetry? Simon Armitage lets us in on backstage secrets from the T S Eliot Prize, one of the most prestigious poetry awards for the best collection of poetry. Poets tweeting vicious rumours, spiking each other’s drinks… An idea met with riotous laughter from the Royal Festival Hall’s 2,000 strong audience, laughing knowingly that this could (most likely) not be further from the truth.

Poets are a quiet kind, perhaps not always on stage, but certainly in the realms of popular culture where popularity is too often measured by the volume of your scandal or celebrity associations. Having very little interest in such things, I found myself, along with the aforementioned 2,000 other poetry fans, leaning forward, listening intently as the ten shortlisted poets, book in hand, took to their platform, taking their deserved spotlight on the stage.

Celebrating its twentieth anniversary, the prestigious T S Eliot Prize honours its founding poet by rewarding the year’s best poets with a winning prize of £15,000 and £1,000 for all shortlisted poets, donated by his widow, Mrs Valerie Eliot. Chaired by Carol Ann Duffy and compered by the charismatic Ian MacMillan, this year’s T S Eliot Prize shortlist featured an impressive selection of poets, diverse in age, geography, inspirations and style, reflecting the richness of poetry being published in the UK.

Gillian Clarke took us back to childhood winters and family Christmas’s in Wales with Ice, while Sean Borodale’s Bee Journal, written on location as he explored the world of bee-keeping, saw poetry fly free using the immediacy and reflective power of words to chronicle his experiences by the hive. Julia Copus’s The World’s Two Smallest Humans shared touching snapshots of family life, juxtaposing the familiar memories of siblings with the hopeful desires of those looking to start their families from scratch, from a petri dish.

Unfortunately absent from the evening, Jorie Graham challenges the reader to unpick her lengthy sentences and imagery to find sense in the unknown in P L A C E, surely worthy of the titular poet’s approval on the shortlist. Ambitiously translating a 4,000 line poem written in the year 1400, The Death of King Arthur perfectly showcases Simon Armitage’s natural musicality with his words and, of course, his ability to spin a yarn worthy of Arthurian legend.

Nature, as soft as her Scottish tones, sailed its way through Kathleen Jamie’s The Overhaul, while Deryn Rees-Jones’s reading from Burying the Wren called on the almost primal spirits of the female voice. Stunning the audience into palpable silence and receiving the only mid-reading applause of the evening, Jacob Polley shone through his collection The Havocs, with a wrenching story of mother and son and an ill-fated late night walk home, alongside a poem about quilts (vastly underappreciated in the world of poetry, don’t you know). A fantastic reader and writer and certainly one who will be making an appearance on my shelf very soon.

Providing the evening’s comedy, Liverpudlian Paul Farley’s The Dark Film asked us to consider the eyes of the world in Google Earth and paid homage to The Queen and her ‘queendom’.Transforming the vastness of the Royal Festival Hall into an intimate shared moment with her softly spoken invitation into the healing process of life after love, Sharon Olds’s Stag’s Leap enraptured the audience. It also made her the unanimous winner of this year’s T S Eliot Prize.

With a shortlist powered by strong female poets, this year’s T S Eliot Prize offered not only a testament to the continuing innovation in poetry but also the strength of the female voice on the page. An inspirational collection of poets – and not a slanderous scandal in sight.

The T S Eliot Prize Poetry Readings took place on Sunday 13 January at

Royal Festival Hall
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road
South Bank
SE1 8X

The winner was announced on Monday 14 January 2013.

Listen to a selection of the shortlisted poets reading on the Poetry Book Society website.

Photo of Sharon Olds by Catherine Mauger