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Good Judges Make Good Poets

Good news - three good poets will be judging the T.S. Eliot prize this year... see press release excerpt below, verbatim; nice to see Leontia Flynn will be in contention:



The Poetry Book Society is delighted to announce the judges for the 2011 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry. Gillian Clarke will be Chair of the judges and the other two members of the panel will be poets Stephen Knight and Dennis O’Driscoll.

The judges will meet in October to decide on the ten-book shortlist. The four Poetry Book Society Choices from 2011 are automatically shortlisted for the Prize. The Spring 2011 Choice was Night by David Harsent (Faber) and the Summer Choice was November by Sean O’Brien (Picador). They will be joined on the shortlist by the PBS Autumn Choice, Profit and Loss by Leontia Flynn (Jonathan Cape), and the Winter Choice, which will be announced in August.

The T S Eliot Prize Shortlist Readings will take place on Sunday 15 January 2012 in the Royal Festival Hall.  The 2010 Readings were held in this new venue for the first time and were a great artistic and audience-building success, attracting 2,000 poetry lovers, one of the biggest audiences for a single poetry event of recent times. The winner of the 2011 Prize will be announced at the award ceremony on Monday 16 January 2012, when Mrs Valerie Eliot will present the winner with a cheque for £15,000.  The shortlisted poets will each receive £1,000.
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Anonymous said…
"The four Poetry Book Society Choices from 2011 are automatically shortlisted for the Prize."

That's a bit iffy. Surely that'd give those poets against an edge over others? I mean, what if your book hadn't been selected by the PBS?
Fri Jun 17, 09:18:00 pm 2011
Poetry Pleases! said…
Dear Todd

Good judges might make good poets but good poets do not necessarily make good judges!

Best wishes from Simon
Sat Jun 18, 09:58:00 am 2011
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