Congratulations to Carrie Etter who has won the London Festival Fringe Prize for the Best First Collection of Poetry 2010. At a packed prize-giving in the West End Carrie’s book, The Tethers, beat off strong competition to carry off the glory and a prize of £2500. Judges Daljit Nagra, Tamar Yoseleff and Adam O’Rioran were full of praise for language, conceits and formal qualities of Carrie’s poetry. She will now appear at the Festival Awards ceremony on 26 August at the Waldorf Hilton, and will read with the judges at a special event at Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour on 1 November.
Carrie Etter said “My thanks to all the judges and to my fellow shortlsted poets, the quality of whose work made the prize that much more dear”. The judges comments were as follows:
It’s rare to find a poet having quite so much fun with language and life as Carrie Etter. The poems perform acrobatics with forms as they are driven by the possibilities of words so each piece seems to arrive at its own unexpected and surprised ending. What’s most impressive is Etter’s restless mind that fetches odd allusions or steers off into tangents in a way that always compels us to make the journey. It’s also rare to find a poet who can persistently find joy through suffering with such an assured lightness of touch which defies its lucid surface. A persistently witty and beautifully moving book that is carefully themed and linguistically patterned so that it feels more like the collection of an experienced poet.
Judges’ Report, London New Poetry Award 2010
Commiserations are in order at the two other Seren poets shortlisted. Carolyn Jess-Cooke for Inroads, and Forward-shortlisted Hilary Menos for Berg.

Read an interview with Costa Prize winning poet John Haynes on the Cyprus Well website www.cypruswell.com
His new book-length poem, You, is available now from Seren.

This weekend you can get not one taster but two of Carol Rumens’ new collection De Chirico’s Threads. On Saturday 14th the Guardian will include ‘De Chirico Paints Ariadne on Naxos’ as its poem of the week. The FT doesn’t agree with that choice, however, it will print ‘Hurbinek’s Children’ as its poem of the week. Whichever you choose they’re both terrific poems from a terrific new collection by one of the outstanding poets in the UK. 
 
And tune into ‘Words and Music’ on Radio 3 on the 15th, when you can hear ‘Beaujolais’ from Kate Bingham’s debut collection Cohabitation read as part of the France-themed programme.  Bingham is currently shortlisted in the Best Poem section of this year’s Forward Prize.

Those curious about the state of Welsh writing could hope for little better introduction than last night’s Oxfam Readathon, which brought an extraordinary cross-section of literart talent straight to the Milgi yurt. The standout performance of the evening came from Seren author Peter Finch. A big imposing Welahman dressed all in black, he was forced to hunch in the low – ceilinged yurt like an ogre in a doll’s house. The poems he chose were rancorous, unyielding and immensely powerful, and not so much read as spat at the audience.
Nathan Williams, Guardian Cardiff
 

Hilary Menos’ Berg  has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize 2010 for Best First Collection. Along with Berg the judges picked Christian Campbell’s Running the Dusk, Abegail Morley’s How to Pour Madness into a Teacup, Helen Oswald’s Learning Gravity, Steve Spence’s A Curious Shipwreck and Sam Willetts’s New Light for the Old Dark for the shortlist for the £5,000 award.
Kate Bingham’s poem ‘On Highgate Hill’ is shortlisted for the The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. This award, for £1000, is in memory of Michael Donaghy and is sponsored by the Forward Arts Foundation
The winner will be announced at a venue in London on 6th October, the eve of  National Poetry Day. The Forward Prizes are the only major poetry prizes that seek to reward both established and new writers. William Sieghart, Chairman of the Forward Arts Foundation, founded the Prizes to provide a showcase for contemporary poetry they are worth £16,000 in total.

Congratulations to Carrie Etter The Tethers, Carolyn Jess-Cooke Inroads and Hilary Menos Berg. They have been shortlisted for the London Fringe New Poetry Award 2010, chosen  from seventy seven first collections published in the past year throughout Britain and Ireland.
 
The winner will be announced at Pizza Express Jazz Club Soho on the 16th August and the Awards ceremony  will be at the Waldorf Hilton on the 28th August. A celebration reading by the winner and shortlist Poets and Poetry Panel Judges will be held at Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour on 1st November.