Fleur Adcock, a judge of the inaugural T. S. Eliot Prize in 1993 and shortlisted in 1997 for her collection Looking Back (Oxford Poetry / OUP), died on 10 October 2024 after a short illness.

Adcock, born in New Zealand and an emigrant to England in 1963, was one of the UK’s foremost poets, known for both the cool wit and emotional dexterity of her work. Carol Ann Duffy’s remark about her, that she ‘has a deceptively laid-back tone, through which the sharper edge of her talent is encountered like a razor blade in a peach’, is widely quoted. ‘I wouldn’t embroider facts, I believe in the absolute direct pure truth’, she told Julian Stannard, when he interviewed her in 1991.

Along with Robert Crawford, Adcock was a Poetry Book Society selector in the year the Society launched the T. S. Eliot Prize, and a member of the judging panel alongside Crawford, Edna Longley, John Lucas and Peter Porter (Chair). In the PBS Bulletin Winter 1993, she reported on the ‘comforting degree of convergence in [the judges’] views’ at the shortlisting meeting (see below). While anticipating that ‘the final day of judgement, in January, is likely to be a long and challenging one… fortified with relays of coffee and sandwiches far into the afternoon’, she demurred from ‘any pronouncements about how much more civilized poetry judges are in their deliberations than the judges of other literary prizes we hear about’.

Adcock published 13 collections of poetry with Oxford University Press and Bloodaxe Books. She was the editor of The Faber Book of 20th Century Women’s Poetry, published in 1987. Her Collected Poems was published by Bloodaxe Books on her 90th birthday, 10 February 2024, which she marked with a lively reading and interview at the London Review Bookshop, as well as at StAnza in St Andrews, and at Newcastle and Ledbury Poetry Festivals. Adcock received an OBE in 1996, The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2006, recognising her first collected edition, Poems 1960–2000 from Bloodaxe, and with the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry 2019. For a full biography, visit the Bloodaxe Books website. (Fleur Adcock photo © Jemimah Kuhfeld.)

We have just published this week’s T. E. Eliot Prize newsletter. Don’t forget to sign up to be the first with Eliot Prize news.

This week, we’ve highlighted where you can hear an Eliot Prize poet near you – present shortlistees and Eliot alumni, too. Readings range from Berwick-upon-Tweed and Birmingham, to Leeds, London and elsewhere. Simply click on the links we’ve listed below for full details.

L to r: Eve Esfandiari-Denney (photo; Lara Laeverenz); Jason Allen-Pasaint (photo: Adrian Pope for the T. S. Eliot Prize)

And here’s a last reminder that Jason Allen-Paisant, winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize 2023, will be giving a celebratory reading at Cheltenham Literature Festival tomorrow afternoon, 3:30pm, Friday 11 October. Self-Portrait as Othello was described by the judges as ‘a book with large ambitions that are met with great imaginative capacity, freshness and technical flair. As the title would suggest, the poetry is delivered with theatricality and in a range of voices and registers, across geographies and eras.’

Jason will be joined by another brilliant performer, Eve Esfandiari-Denney – who has been shortlisted for the 2024 Forward Prizes’ Jerwood Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed. To book, visit the Cheltenham Literature Festival box office.

ELIOT POETS EVENTS
Don’t miss your chance to see our shortlist and alumni in action near you!