The winner of the 2014 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry has been announced as Fire Songs by David Harsent (pictured above), published by Faber and Faber.
This is Harsent’s fifth appearance on the shortlist, following A Bird’s Idea of Flight (1998), Marriage (2002), Legion (2005) and Night (2011), all published by Faber and Faber.
Chair Helen Dunmore said:
“David Harsent is a poet for dark and dangerous days. Fire Songs plumbs language and emotion with technical brilliance and prophetic power”. Find out for yourself – read Dive, one of David Harsent’s prize-winning poems.
David Harsent has published eleven collections of poetry, including Legion (2005), which won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, and Night (2011) – a Poetry Book Society Choice – which was shortlisted for the Costa, Forward and T S Eliot Prizes and won the Griffin International Poetry Prize. His collections A Bird’s Idea of Flight and Marriage were PBS Choices in 1998 and 2002 respectively. He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Roehampton and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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Have you read Fire Songs by David Harsent, or any of the shortlisted titles? Share your thoughts below or on twitter.
On the Poetry Book Society site, you’ll find three poems and some more details about each of the shortlisted poets, helpful reading group discussion notes about the titles, and there’s an article about overcoming anxiety about reading poetry: Who’s Afraid of T.S. Eliot?
