2007 Forward Prize Winners

Congratulations to Sean O'Brien, and Daljit Nagra, who both won Forward prizes today, on National Poetry Day in Britain. Alice Oswald also won the prize, for best poem. Hats off to her as well.

O'Brien is the first to win the Best Book prize three times, since 1995, and Nagra, the UK's most-talked-about new poet for years, now establishes his collection as something of a contemporary popular poetry classic. Nagra is one of 56 poets on the new Oxfam poetry CD launched at The Cheltenham Literary Festival tomorrow. O'Brien was one of the first poets to read for the Oxfam Poetry Series, in London, in 2004, as pictured above, with fellow poet Polly Clark, who also read that night.

Both poets are now likely to compete for the T.S. Eliot Prize, awarded in January 2008, along with 8 others who will be shortlisted. It should be a strong field.

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IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

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In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

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E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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