Ted Hughes Award


The Ted Hughes Award is an annual prize given to a living UK poet for new work in poetry. It is awarded each spring in recognition of a work from the previous year.

Background

The award was established in 2009 with the permission of Carol Hughes in honour of British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Annually the members of the Poetry Society and Poetry Book Society recommend a living UK poet who has completed the newest and most innovative work that year, "highlighting outstanding contributions made by poets to our cultural life." The award seeks to celebrate new work that may fall beyond the conventional realms of poetry, embracing mediums such as music, dance and theatre. The £5,000 prize funded from the annual honorarium that Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy receives as Laureate from The Queen.
Alice Oswald was the inaugural winner of the 2009 award for her collection Weeds and Wildflowers. The 2010 award, selected by judges Gillian Clarke, Stephen Raw and Jeanette Winterson, was awarded to Kaite O’Reilly for her site specific retelling of Aeschylus’ play, The Persians. Three other poets were short-listed. Christopher Reid worked with director Niall MacCormick to adapt his narrative poem The Song of Lunch into a 50-minute BBC2 film. David Swann's The Privilege of Rain, is a collection compiled following a year as Writer in Residence at HMP Nottingham. Katharine Towers' The Floating Man is a debut collection published by Picador.
The 2011 award went to Lavinia Greenlaw won the prize for sound piece Audio Obscura. Shortlisted were Julia Copus for Ghost Lines, Robert Crawford for Simonides, Andrew Motion for Laurels and Donkeys and Christopher Reid for Airs and Ditties of No Man’s Land.
The 2012 award, selected by judges Cornelia Parker, Ian Duhig and Maura Dooley, went to Kate Tempest for her work Brand New Ancients. Shortlisted were Colette Bryce, Roy Fisher, Ruth Padel, Mario Petrucci, Denise Riley and Tamar Yoseloff.
The 2013 award went to Maggie Sawkins for Zones of Avoidance, a live production featuring multimedia written and performed by Sawkins and directed by Mark Hewitt.
The 2014 award went to Sir Andrew Motion for his radio programme Coming Home. The production featured poetry by Motion based on recordings he made of British soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 2015 award was won by David Morley for his selected poems The Invisible Gift.
The 2016 award was won by Hollie McNish for her poetic memoir Nobody Told Me.

Winners