In this week”s news, a poem project has been given the People”s Book Prize. We also have details of a commencement address being given by a poet, and the winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize.

People’s Book Prize Given to Poem Project

Christina Gabbitas, who is a children’s author based not far from York, has won an award for a project that she created to help children and young people cope with the lockdowns of the Covid pandemic.

The People’s Book Prize was awarded to the founder of the Children”s Literature Festivals charity. The Lockdown Life project, which began life during the first lockdown in March 2020, was inspired by the concept of getting people to write a poem to share their feelings. It wanted to encourage young people, teachers and children to let others know their thoughts.

Gabbitas said of the project that lockdown was difficult for everyone, and she wanted to help by giving people a platform on which they could share and know that they were not alone; she thought a poetry collection was a great way in which they could do this.

The Lockdown Life project poems were judged by a panel of 25 judges who selected the poems that should be published.

Jericho Brown, a Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet, to Deliver Bennington College Commencement Address

The commencement speaker for the Class of 22 at Bennington College, has been announced as Jericho Brown who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

The 87^th graduating class ceremony for the conferring of degrees will take place on 28^th May. Brown has a long-standing relationship with Bennington College. In 2020 he was responsible for the delivery of the 49^th Bennington Writing Seminars Commencement Address.

He has also such events as Poetry at Bennington which took place in both 2013 and 2019. He was awarded his Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for “The Tradition”. He is also a very successful author and has won a number of awards for his books.

Dylan Thomas Prize Won by Debut Novelist and Poet

The 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize which carries a cash prize of £20,000 has been won by Patricia Lockwood. Lockwood is a debut novelist, poet and essayist from America and the award is for her debut novel “No One Is Talking About This” which was described by the judges as a

The book focuses on a narrator, who is unnamed, as they deal with fame found through social media and a life that they live on “the portal” a Twitter-like platform.

The prize is run by Swansea University and is open to authors who are aged 39 or younger – it is considered to be one of the most prestigious awards out there for younger writers.

The panel of judges included other writers, poets and several former winners of the prize.

Lockwood has previously made it to the Booker prize shortlist, in 2021, and she has also been shortlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction. She has published two collections of poetry and a memoir.