In 2023 the T. S. Eliot Prize celebrates its 30th anniversary. We’re marking the occasion by looking back at the collections which have won ‘the Prize poets most want to win’ (Sir Andrew Motion).
Roger Robinson, winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize 2019. Photo: Adrian Pope
Judges John Burnside (Chair), Sarah Howe and Nick Makoha were unanimous in choosing Roger Robinson’s A Portable Paradise (Peepal Tree Press) as the winner of of the T. S. Eliot Prize 2019 – a book that, they agreed, ‘finds in the bitterness of everyday experience continuing evidence of “sweet, sweet life”.’
Reflecting on his win, Roger wrote:
The T. S. Eliot Prize became such a positive inflection point in my career, boosting my confidence and my reception in the literary world. It enabled me to work with producers and companies that I’d not had access to previously, and its influence allowed me to further support younger black writers in their journey, which is of great importance to me.
Roger Robinson’s poetry pamphlet Suckle (flipped eye, 2009) won the People’s Book Prize and the Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize. His debut collection, The Butterfly Hotel (Peepal Tree Press, 2013), was shortlisted for The OCM Bocas Poetry Prize and his second full collection, A Portable Paradise (Peepal Tree Press, 2019), won the the Ondaatje Prize as well as the 2019 T. S. Eliot Prize. His recent collaboration with photographer Johny Pitts, Home is Not a Place (William Collins) was shortlisted for The British Book Awards 2023 Discover Book of the Year. Roger is an alumni of The Complete Works and was a co-founder of both Spoke Lab and the international writing collective Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. rogerrobinsononline.com
ABOUT THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE
The T. S. Eliot Prize celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2023. Awarded annually to the best new poetry collection published in the UK and Ireland, the Prize was founded by the Poetry Book Society in 1993 to celebrate the PBS’s 40th birthday and to honour its founding poet. It has been run by The T. S. Eliot Foundation since 2016. For more on the history of the Prize, visit tseliot.com/prize
The judges of the T. S. Eliot Prize 2023 are Paul Muldoon (Chair), Sasha Dugdale and Denise Saul. Submissions are now open and will close at the end of July. The 2023 Shortlist Readings will be held on 14 January 2024 at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall; tickets will go on sale later this year. The winner of the 2023 Prize will be announced at the Award Ceremony on 15 January 2024.
Sign up to the T. S. Eliot Prize e-newsletter for regular updates about the award. It includes poems and specially commissioned video readings by our shortlisted poets, plus interviews, biographical information, reviews, Readers’ Notes, and news and offers from across the poetry world.