Poet laureate （桂冠诗人）Carol Ann Duffy has announced a new prize celebrating poetry in all its forms, following her first audience with the Queen today.
Funded by Duffy's donation of her yearly £5,750 stipend （薪俸）as laureate （获得者）to the Poetry Society, the prize, known as the Ted Hughes award （特德休斯奖）for new work in poetry, will be awarded annually throughout Duffy's 10-year term as laureate. Duffy had already made clear that she "didn't want to take on what basically is an honour on behalf of other poets and complicate it with money". "I thought it was better to give it back to poetry," she said in May, when she was chosen as laureate.
The prize, worth £5,000, will go to a UK poet working in any form – including poetry collections for adults and children, individual poems, radio poems, translations and verse（诗，韵文） dramas – who has made the "most exciting contribution" to poetry that year. "I'm delighted, with the assistance of Buckingham Palace and the Poetry Society, to be founding this new award for poetry. With the permission of Carol Hughes, the award is named in honour of Ted Hughes, poet laureate, and one of the greatest 20th-century poets for both children and adults," said Duffy in a statement announcing the new prize.
Other poets welcomed news of the award, with Sean O'Brien saying it would "take account of the scope of poetry in its many manifestations, in book form and beyond". Don Paterson called it "generous and innovative", and a prize that "acknowledges all the ways we can carry the poem into the mind of the reader … This is typical of Carol Ann's imaginative approach to developing the art, and builds on her predecessor's democratic commitment to taking the best poetry wherever it can go," he said.
"Surely this is the prize many have been waiting for," agreed Moniza Alvi. "Its width is wonderful: it sheds light on areas of poetry which are so deserving of general recognition, for example, poetry books published for children and works in translation."
The first winner will be announced in March 2010, with nominations to be made by the Poetry Society, and the winner will be decided by three judges, appointed by Duffy. Poetry Society director Judith Palmer said it was an honour to launch an award linking the names of two such inspirational poets. "It's been great fun devising this exciting new initiative with her, which we believe will make a significant impact in raising awareness of the range and vitality of contemporary poetry," she added.
