We’ve just received the first of the Young Critics’ filmed review of this year’s shortlisted titles and we couldn’t be more impressed and enthused!
The Young Critics scheme, run in partnership with The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network, invited ten young participants – Ruth Awolola, Davina Bacon, Aliyah Begum, Noah Jacob, Abondance Matanda, Lily McDermott, Holly Moberley, SZ Shao, Mukisa Verrall and Eric Yip – to create their own video review of each of the collections shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. The scheme offered mentoring and workshop sessions, including one with expert online reviewer Jen Campbell, to help them develop their creative and critical skills – and it’s clear that they have.
Eric Yip said, ‘I’m really glad to have been part of the Young Critics Scheme – it has expanded the way I read and given me the courage to dive deeper into the world of poetry reviewing.’
‘Taking part in the Young Critics Scheme has helped me to try things I’ve never done before – recording and editing audio, as well as filming within a time limit, using the basics I already have at home,’ said Holly Moberley. ‘The world of reviewing feels more accessible to me than ever, like a potential career avenue.’
Look out for the Young Critics’ video reviews which will appear on the T. S. Eliot Prize and The Poetry Society’s websites, social media and YouTube channels in December.
Top row, left to right: Ruth Awolola, Davina Bacon, Aliyah Begum, Noah Jacob, Abondance Matanda. Bottom row, left to right: Lily McDermott, Holly Moberley, SZ Shao, Mukisa Verrall and Eric Yip
Would you like to be among the first to hear which collections have been shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize 2022? Then join Jean Sprackland, chair of judges, at a free event at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival. Jean will announce which ten collections she and her fellow judges have chosen, share the judges’ thoughts on the books and invite your questions. Drop in at The Huddle, Montpellier Gardens, Cheltenham, on Thursday 13 October, 3-4pm. For more details, view 
The following day, in another Cheltenham Literature Festival exclusive, Matthew Hollis, Faber Poetry Editor and author of the forthcoming The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem, Erica Wagner, critic and author, and Daljit Nagra, twice shortlisted for and a former judge of the T. S. Eliot Prize, will present an expert guide to Eliot’s The Waste Land in its centenary year. See them on Friday 16 October, from 6.15pm, on the Baillie Gifford Stage, Town Hall, Cheltenham;