In today’s poetry round-up we bring you the winner of the 2017 T.S Eliot Prize, Ocean Vuong the poet who shot into the spotlight when he won the Forward Prize. We also look at an article about the plans for a new home for Poetry Ireland.
T.S Eliot Prize Winner 2017
Ocean Vuong, who won the Forward Prize towards the end of 2017, has been named as the winner of the T.S Eliot prize 2017. This perhaps the most prestigious award for the young poet who is the first literate member of his family.
Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Vuong’s first collection is the reflection of three generations on the aftermath of war. Since the book as published it has been heavily acclaimed within the literary world for the way in which Vuong has portrayed the emotions of both the violence of war and the delicacy of family. His poems have bee described in places as being reminiscent of the style of Emily Dickinson whilst having a similar appreciation for the rhythm and sound of the words as Gerard Manley-Hopkins.
Winning the T.S Eliot prize makes Vuong only the second debut poet to do so. The previous debt poet to win the award was Sarah Howe in 2016 with Loop of Jade.
Vuong was picked as the winner from a shortlist of just 10 poets, he was the only non-white poet to make it to the shortlist. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the prize and in recognition of this the prize for the winner was £25,000 rather than the £20,000 of previous years. Vuong will also appear on a special postmark here in the UK that will be issued by the Royal Mail. He will also be the very first poet who will be inducted into the new T.S Eliot prize winners archive; he joins a list of previous winners which is very prestigious and includes poets like Ted Hughes, Sharon Olds and Carol Ann Duffy.
Georgian House to Become Home for Irish Poetry
It has taken almost 40 years, but it looks like a solution might finally be in the offing for Poetry Ireland in the form of a new home. Planning permission has been received to transform one of the oldest townhouses in Dublin into the new location for Poetry in Ireland. With a healthy €1 million in funds having been donated to the project fundraising efforts can be upped in the hope of raising the final €4 million that will be required to complete the project.
The building in question 11 Parnell Square, already has a long history, it was home to the National Club whose members included the muse of WB Yeats, Maud Gonne, and the nationalist John O’Leary who appeared in his poem September 1913. The building was also use as the setting for one of the stories in Dubliners by James Joyce.
It is hoped that the museum will be in a position to open by the end of 2019 or at the very latest the spring of 2020.
You must register to comment. Log in or Register.