History

The Aldeburgh First Collection Prize was launched in 1989 to coincide with the first Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and remains the oldest prize of its kind in the UK. The winner has always received both a cash prize and an invitation to read at the subsequent Festival.

Between 2003 and 2008, the award was renamed the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and its profile and value substantially increased, thanks to generous six-year investment from the Jerwood Charitable Foundation. Instead of an anonymous panel, two established poets are appointed each year as judges, together with Michael Laskey as Chair. Recent judges have included Gillian Allnutt, Helen Dunmore, Vicki Feaver, Jamie McKendrick and Christopher Reid.

The shortlist

Up to five titles will be shortlisted and announced on National Poetry Day - 8 October 2010

The Prize

The winner will receive:

a cheque for £3,000
a week of paid ‘protected’ writing time on the East Suffolk coast
a fee-paying invitation to read at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival 2011 (a unique opportunity to reach Britain’s largest and most appreciative poetry audience)

Plans are afoot to extend the scope and benefits of the prize to offer mentoring for the winner and shortlisted poets and increased opportunities at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.

The winner will be announced at the 22nd Aldeburgh Poetry Festival which takes place 5 - 7 November 2010

The Judges

Michael Laskey (Chairman of the Judges) was co-founder of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and Director for its first ten years and he is founding editor of Smiths Knoll magazine. He has published four collections, including The Tightrope Wedding which was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize. His The Man Alone: New & Selected Poems was published in 2009.

Jo Shapcott President of the Poetry Society since 2005. She teaches on the MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London. She is also Visiting Professor in Poetry at the University of Newcastle and Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts, London.

Her book Poems 1988-1998 (2000), consists of a selection of poetry from her three earlier collections. She has won the National Poetry Competition twice. She co-edited the popular anthology of contemporary poetry Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times (1996).

Her forthcoming collection Of Mutability will be published by Faber in July 2010. The Transformers, also due for publication in 2010, is a collection of public lectures given by Jo Shapcott as part of her Professorship at Newcastle. Her latest book is a translation, with Narguess Farzad, of Poems by Farzaneh Khojandi (2008).

Neil Rollinson Born in Yorkshire in 1960 and studied Fine Art at Newcastle before moving to London. He has published three collections of poetry: A Spillage of Mercury (1996), Spanish Fly (2001) and Demolition (2007), all published by Jonathan Cape, and P.B.S. recommendations. In 2005 he won the Cholmondeley award, an annual award for poetry given by the UK’s Society of Authors and spent two years as writer-in-residence at Wordworth’s Dove Cottage in the Lake District.

The 2009 Winner  

The winner of the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2009 was announced at the 21st Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, 6-8 November. The recipient of this £3,000 major prize for the year’s best first collection is Scottish poet J.O. Morgan for Natural Mechanical (CB editions).

The Guardian online reveals winner of the 2009 Aldeburgh First Collection Prize

The book - which was also shortlisted for the Forward Best First Collection Prize - comprises a single narrative poem recounting a childhood on the Isle of Skye. In a year attracting a record 92 entries, Aldeburgh judges (and poets) David Constantine, Mimi Khalvati and Michael Laskey (Chair) were unanimous in their final decision.

Mimi Khalvati said: “Such an engaging, affecting book. It effortlessly combines different verse-forms: remarkable, particularly for a first collection, in deftly tackling a book-length narrative, and also refreshing in its sense of tradition.”

Michael Laskey said: “We admired this book for its live language and sophisticated story-telling, but we loved it for its generosity, its unsentimental celebration of a disadvantaged boy making good.”

Responding to news of his win, J.O. Morgan (31) said: “I’ve never thought of it as a prize-winning book. I had hoped it might affect people in the way books have affected me in the past. That’s all I’ve ever wanted from any of the works I’ve undertaken. I really hope the book continues to be enjoyed by many more people.”

To order a copy of Natural Mechanical see: www.cbeditions.com

 
The shortlist for the 2009 Aldeburgh First Collection Prize was announced on National Poetry Day, 8 October 2009:

Sian Hughes The Missing (Salt Publishing)

J O Morgan Natural Mechanical (C B Editions)

Andrew Philip The Ambulance Box (Salt Publishing)

Philip Rush Big Purple Garden Paintings (Yew Tree Press)

Dawn Wood Quarry (Templar Poetry)