This article on the T. S. Eliot Prize was first published on the Poetry Book Society website in 2013.

The Poetry Book Society is delighted to announce that Sharon Olds has won the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry 2012 with Stag’s Leap, published by Cape Poetry. She is the first female American poet to win the Prize, and was chosen from a recording-breaking 131 submissions.

The Judges of this year’s Prize – Carol Ann Duffy (Chair), Michael Longley and David Morley – reached their decision after months of reading and deliberation.

The poets on this year’s star-studded Shortlist have won 22 prizes and awards between them, though none have previously won the T. S. Eliot Prize.

Carol Ann Duffy, Chair of the judges, said:

My fellow judges Michael Longley, David Morley and I were proud of the freshness, skill and authority exhibited in this year’s shortlist. From over 130 collections, we were particularly impressed by the strong presence of women on the list and were unanimous in awarding the T. S. Eliot Prize 2012 to Sharon Olds’ Stag’s Leap, a tremendous book of grace and gallantry which crowns the career of a world-class poet.

Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Francisco. Her first collection of poems, Satan Says (1980), received the inaugural San Francisco Poetry Center Award. The Dead & the Living (1983) received the Lamont Poetry Selection in 1983 and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other collections include Strike Sparks: Selected Poems (2004) and The Father (1992), which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her last collection, One Secret Thing (Cape Poetry, 2009) explored the themes of war, family relationships and the death of her mother, and was also shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. She currently teaches creative writing at New York University.

Carol Ann Duffy formally announced the winner at the T. S. Eliot Prize Award Ceremony in the Courtyard at the Wallace Collection on Monday 14 January. The winner was presented with a cheque for £15,000 and each shortlisted poet received a cheque for £1,000 in recognition of their achievement in winning a place on the most prestigious shortlist in UK poetry. The Poetry Book Society would like to acknowledge Mrs Valerie Eliot’s great generosity in providing the prize money since the inception of the Prize and to say how much she was missed at this year’s Prize events.

The award ceremony was preceded by the T. S. Eliot Prize Readings on Sunday 13 January, held in the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall.

The Prize is generously supported by the T. S. Eliot Estate. This year marks the second year of generous three-year support from Aurum, a private investment management firm which manages funds for charities, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and private individuals, and which supports a range of charities.

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.