The English Association - over 100 years at the forefront of English

To celebrate National Poetry Day on 8 October 2010, the English Association announced the inauguration of a new biennial prize of £500 for a distinctive first volume of poetry in English published in Britain or Ireland – in the first instance between January 2008 and June 2011.

 

The Prize has been established by some of his colleagues at Nottingham Trent University, in honour of the Liverpool-born poet Michael Murphy, who died of a brain tumour, aged 43, in May 2009.

 

Michael Murphy’s first volume of poetry, After Attila, appeared from Shoestring Press in 1998 when he was 33. Shoestring has published two subsequent collections, Elsewhere (2003) and Allotments (2008), and will bring out a posthumous Collected Poems in 2011. In 2001 Michael was awarded the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize by Poetry Review as ‘New Poet of the Year’. The intention of the present prize is to extend the same recognition to another new poet.

 

2011 WINNER AND SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED

 

The adjudicators for the first award were:

 

Poet and critic Deryn Rees-Jones (Michael’s widow)
Poet and literary historian Gregory Woods
Poet, translator and publisher Anthony Rudolf

 

 

Volumes for consideration were of book proportions (at least 48 pages in length, with spine and binding) and were sent by either author or publisher by 15 June 2011 to the Chief Executive of the English Association at The English Association, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH.

 

The prize-winning collection will be advertised and reviewed in the English Association Newsletter, the journal English, and on the Association website. By agreement, a representative poem may be printed in one or more of these locations. The award of the prize and appropriate comments may be cited in any subsequent advertising.

 

This is a biennial award. Submission for the next award will be posted on this website in due course.