This article on the T. S. Eliot Prize was first published on the Poetry Book Society website in 2014.
In autumn 2013, the Poetry Book Society organised a ten-venue national tour, funded by Arts Council England, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the T. S. Eliot Prize. At each venue world-class poets shortlisted in recent years read from their work, alongside a well-known local poet.
The T. S. Eliot Prize has grown substantially from its beginnings and the annual Readings in the Royal Festival Hall are the largest poetry event of the year, now garnering audiences of up to 2,000 people, live news broadcasts and widespread coverage in the national press. The Prize, one of the world’s top poetry awards, travelled outside London for the first time.
The tour visited a wide range of venues all over the country, stopping at Portsmouth, Winchester, Oldham, Halifax, Ludlow, Glasgow, Norwich, Liverpool, Durham and Sheffield. To learn more about who read on this remarkable countrywide tour click here.
The Poetry Book Society is now pleased to share a new short film which chronicles the tour, with an emphasis on events at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library, Square Chapel for the Arts in Halifax and Sheffield’s Off the Shelf Festival.
This article has been republished to provide a fuller picture of the T. S. Eliot Prize history. The Poetry Book Society ran the T. S. Eliot Prize until 2016, when the T. S. Eliot Foundation took over the Prize, the estate having supported it since its inception.
