Jorie Graham leads T. S. Eliot Prize shortlist
24th October 2012 - 9:34am
US poet Jorie Graham is among ten writers shortlisted for this year's T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.
She is nominated for her acclaimed 12th collection, P L A C E, which also won the Forward Prize earlier this month.
If Graham wins, she will follow in the footsteps of John Burnside, who won both the Forward Prize and T. S. Eliot prize last year for his collection Black Cat Bone.
Other poets in the running for the GBP 15,000 prize include Simon Armitage, Sharon Olds and Kathleen Jamie.
Yorkshire-born poet Armitage is nominated for his translation of the 15th century Arthurian romance The Death of King Arthur. He has been shortlisted three times in the past but has never won the award, which is now in its 20th year.
Jamie is recognised for The Overhaul, her first collection since 2004's Forward Prize-winning The Tree House, while Olds is nominated for Stag's Leap, about the end of her marriage.
Poet and artist Sean Borodale is chosen for his debut, Bee Journal, which charts the life of a beehive, and Gillian Clarke is nominated for Ice, an examination of winter.
Julia Copus is shortlisted for her third collection, The World's Two Smallest Humans, while Paul Farley is nominated for The Dark Film. Jacob Polley's The Havocs and Deryn Rees-Jones' Burying the Wren complete the ten-strong shortlist.
Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, chair of the judges, commented: 'In a year which saw a record number of submissions, my fellow judges and I are delighted with a shortlist which sparkles with energy, passion and freshness and which demonstrates the range and variety of poetry being published in the UK.'
The 2012 prize winner will be announced at a ceremony in January, with the shortlisted poets each receiving GBP 1,000.
Previous winners include Ted Hughes, Duffy herself and Seamus Heaney.