2004
T. S. Eliot Prize
Winner
George Szirtes was born in Budapest in 1948 and came to England as a refugee in 1956. He was brought up in London and studied Fine Art in London and Leeds. He has published many books and won various prizes including the T. S. Eliot Prize for Reel (Bloodaxe Books) in 2005. Beside his work in poetry and translation, he has written Exercise of Power, a study of the artist Ana Maria Pacheco, and, together with his wife, the painter Clarissa Upchurch, ran The Starwheel Press. Bad Machine (Bloodaxe Books)was the Poetry Book Society Choice in Spring 2013 and shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize that year.
His publications since then include Mapping the Delta (2016), another Poetry Book Society Choice, and Fresh Out of the Sky (2021), both Bloodaxe. Bloodaxe has also published his Newcastle/Bloodaxe Poetry Lectures, Fortinbras at the Fishhouses: Responsibility, the Iron Curtain and the sense of history as knowledge (2010), and John Sears’ critical study, Reading George Szirtes (2008). His memoir of his mother, The Photographer at Sixteen (MacLehose Press, 2019), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography. Szirtes lives in Norfolk and is a freelance writer, having retired from teaching at the University of East Anglia. He was awarded The King's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2024.
Bloodaxe Books
Announcements
Introduction
The T. S. Eliot Prize is awarded annually to the writer of the best new poetry collection published in the UK and Ireland. Described by Sir Andrew Motion as ‘the prize poets most want to win’ and by The Independent as the ‘world’s top poetry award’, it is the most prestigious poetry prize in the world, and the only major poetry prize judged purely by established poets.
Announcements
Introduction
The T. S. Eliot Prize is awarded annually to the writer of the best new poetry collection published in the UK and Ireland. Described by Sir Andrew Motion as ‘the prize poets most want to win’ and by The Independent as the ‘world’s top poetry award’, it is the most prestigious poetry prize in the world, and the only major poetry prize judged purely by established poets.
Announcements
Shortlisted Works
Shortlisted Poets
Colette Bryce was born in Derry in 1970 and has lived in England, Spain and Scotland. She received...
Kathryn Gray was born in Wales and now lives in North London. Recipient of an Eric Gregory Award,...
Kathleen Jamie was born in Scotland in 1962. She has published several collections of poetry, including: Black Spiders...
Michael Longley, born in Belfast on 27 July 1939, was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and...
Ruth Padel has published thirteen poetry collections, numerous books of non-fiction including two much-loved books on reading contemporary...
Tom Paulin grew up in Belfast and now lives in Oxford, where he is Emeritus Fellow of Hertford...
Peter Porter (1929-2010) moved to Britain from Australia in 1951. He published seventeen collections of poetry. His two-volume...
Michael Symmons Roberts was born in Preston, Lancashire, and spent his childhood in Lancashire. He now lives near...
John Hartley Williams (1942-2014) published four collections with Bloodaxe (all now out of print) after making his debut...
Judges
CHAIR
Douglas Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire, in 1942. He is a major Scottish poet, editor and critic,...
Videos
Related News Stories
The T. S. Eliot Prize video and audio archive spans four decades and is ever expanding. Each year, following the announcement of the T. S. Eliot Prize Shortlist, we invite the shortlisted poets to a filming session. We record an interview with each of them and ask them to read...
In 2023 the T. S. Eliot Prize celebrated its 30th anniversary. We marked the occasion by looking back at the collections which have won ‘the Prize poets most want to win’ (Sir Andrew Motion). George Szirtes won the T. S. Eliot Prize 2004 for his collection Reel (Bloodaxe Books). Judges...
This article on the T. S. Eliot Prize was first published in the Poetry Book Society’s PBS Bulletin in Winter 2004/5. ‘Off to London soon to make whoopee. Well, to read three or four poems and make something: conversation mostly.’ George Szirtes’ website diary entry for the night before...
This article on the T. S. Eliot Prize was first published in the Poetry Book Society’s PBS Bulletin in Autumn 2004. The dozens of manuscripts and scores of books submitted for this year’s T. S. Eliot Prize spill out of two large crates in the Poetry Book Society office –...
