This article on the T. S. Eliot Prize was first published on the Poetry Book Society website in 2004.

Don Paterson was named the winner of the 11th T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry at an award ceremony held at Lancaster House in London on Monday 19 January. He was presented with a cheque for £10,000 by Mrs Valerie Eliot, who has supported the Prize since its inception in 1993. The ceremony was hosted by Estelle Morris, Minister for the Arts.

Paterson’s book, Landing Light (Faber & Faber, 2003), was judged to be the best collection of new poetry published in the UK and Ireland in 2003 by a panel of poets comprising George Szirtes (Chair), David Harsent and Mimi Khalvati.

The Prize is awarded by the Poetry Book Society. T. S. Eliot was a founder member of the Poetry Book Society in 1953. Previous winners include Les Murray, Ted Hughes and Alice Oswald – and Don Paterson himself in 1997 with God’s Gift to Women (Faber & Faber). He is the first poet to win the T. S. Eliot Prize twice.

Landing Light is Don Paterson’s most accomplished and spiritual collection to date. Chair of the Judges, George Szirtes, commented:

Don Paterson offers what Eliot demanded: complexity and intensity of emotion, an intuitive understanding of tradition and what it makes possible, and, at the same time, a freshness that is like clear spring water. His work is superbly authoritative, deeply felt, playful and properly ambitious.

Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963, and works as a writer, editor and musician. He has also written drama for the stage and for radio, and worked as a reviewer and columnist for several national newspapers. As a jazz guitarist, he works solo and with the ensemble Lammas, with whom he has recorded five albums.

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.