16 Jan 2012

LIVE BLOG: Latest from the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry

Tonight the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry is announced live on Channel 4 News. It’s the most high-profile award for British poets but this year it’s also political. Follow the #c4news live blog for latest news.

8.15pm: John Burnside: “I think poetry should challenge conventional ideas… societal conditioning on all kinds of levels.

“In this book I wanted to challenge ideas that people have about romantic love, about what it means to successful in relationships, the questions that relate to power in relationships. There are other kinds of questions to ask, of course.”
 

Read more: John Burnside wins TS Eliot prize in year of controversy

7.50pm: Accepting the award John Burnside told Channel 4 News: “It’s quite special… because of the sense of community here. I think I chose the right title because Black Cat Bone is a talisman for luck and success. Maybe that helped!”

7.30pm: Gillian Clarke, who chaired the judging panel, said: “Amongst an unprecedentedly strong and unusually well-received shortlist, John Burnside’s Black Cat Bone is a haunting book of great beauty, powered by love, childhood memory, human longing and loneliness.

“In an exceptional year, it is an outstanding book, one which the judges felt grew with every reading.”

7.20pm: The winner of this year’s TS Eliot Prize is announced: John Burnside for Black Cat Bone.

7.15pm: “There’s a real feeling of celebration… the brotherhood and sisterhood of poetry,” Carol Ann Duffy tells Channel 4 News.

7.00pm: Our Culture Editor Matthew Cain will be interviewing the winner of the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry live on Channel 4 News in just over half an hour.

6.45pm: Britain’s poet laureate, and one of the nominees, Carol Ann Duffy has spoken to Channel 4 News about the withdrawal of two nominees – Alice Oswald and John Kinsella – because of their unhappiness about the prize’s new sponsor, hedge fund investment firm Aurum Funds.

Duffy said: “Every poet must follow their conscience.”

“In my case I spent a lot of time last year trying to get support for the Poetry Book Society, which suffered 100 per cent cuts.

6.30pm: There’s an hour to go until the judges at the TS Eliot Prize announce the winner. You can find out who’s in the running here, and why this year’s event is dominated by spending cuts in the arts.

Tonight the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry is announced live on Channel 4 News. It’s the most high-profile award for British poets but this year it’s also political. Against a backdrop of spending cuts and with two nominees withdrawing in protest at a hedge fund firm taking over sponsorship of the prize, it promises to be a fascinating moment for the arts. You can watch video clips of the nominees and add your voice in the window above or on Twitter using the hashtag #c4news.