Author | Sean O'Brien |
---|---|
Language | English |
Series | Picador poetry |
Subject | Poetry>European>English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh |
Genre | Poetry |
Publisher | Picador |
Publication date | 2007 |
Publication place | England |
Pages | 80 |
ISBN | 9780330447621 |
The Drowned Book is a collection of poetry written by Sean O'Brien, a British poet, critic, novelist, broadcaster, and playwright. [1] In 2007 it was awarded with The Forward prize for best collection (The third time this author has received this award) and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2007. [2] The book was reprinted in 2015, with an introduction from poet and novelist Helen Dunmore, and a revision that gave it 16 more pages and a new cover. [3]
The Drowned Book is a collection of poems based around Dante's Inferno, but the author decided to re-write them themed around a darker than usual form of water that is unclean and filled with emotions, and its part in the Northern English history. According to Sarah Crown, the author refers to the Victorian era and how the humans visioned themselves as being in control of the water element using different tools. In the poem "Re-edify me" he holds this thought in high regard. Yet, in "Water Gardens" poem, he talks about how detrimental the era was. [4]
Sarah Crown, reviewing the collection for The Guardian , called it a "lyrical and evocative collection". [4]
According to Tim Love, The Drowned Book sold 768 before being awarded with the T. S. Eliot Prize. [5]
The Drowned Book was awarded both the T. S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prizes for Poetry in 2007. The T. S. Eliot Prize is the highest award given to poetry written by an Irish or English poet. The Forward Prizes for Poetry is a British award given to works of poetry published in England; this was the third time O'Brien received the award (to his surprise, given the competition [2] ). The judges from the Forward Prizes panel said the book is "witty and heart-wrenching". [6]
Tim Liardet is a poet twice nominated for the T. S. Eliot Prize, a critic, and Professor of Poetry at Bath Spa University.
Jane Draycott FRSL is a British poet, artistic collaborator and poetry translator. She was born in London in 1954 and studied at King's College London and the University of Bristol. Draycott's fifth collection The Kingdom was published in 2023 by Carcanet Press.
Pascale Petit, is a French-born British poet of French, Welsh and Indian heritage. She was born in Paris and grew up in France and Wales. She trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art and was a visual artist for the first part of her life. She has travelled widely, particularly in the Peruvian and Venezuelan Amazon and India.
The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is a prize for poetry awarded by the T. S. Eliot Foundation. For many years it was awarded by the Eliots' Poetry Book Society (UK) for "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in honour of its founding poet, T. S. Eliot. Since its inception, the prize money was donated by Eliot's widow, Valerie Eliot and more recently it has been given by the T. S. Eliot Estate.
Alice Priscilla Lyle Oswald is a British poet from Reading, Berkshire. Her work won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002 and the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2017. In September 2017, she was named as BBC Radio 4's second Poet-in-Residence, succeeding Daljit Nagra. From 1 October 2019 until 30 September 2023, she was the Oxford Professor of Poetry.
Nicholas Laird is a Northern Irish novelist and poet.
The Forward Prizes for Poetry are major British awards for poetry, presented annually at a public ceremony in London. They were founded in 1992 by William Sieghart with the aim of celebrating excellence in poetry and increasing its audience. The prizes do this by identifying and honouring talent: collections published in the UK and Ireland over the course of the previous year are eligible, as are single poems nominated by journal editors or prize organisers. Each year, works shortlisted for the prizes – plus those highly commended by the judges – are collected in the Forward Book of Poetry.
David Harsent is an English poet who for some time earned his living as a TV scriptwriter and crime novelist.
John Burnside FRSL FRSE was a Scottish writer. He was one of four poets to have won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for one book. In Burnside's case it was for his 2011 collection, Black Cat Bone. In 2023, he won the David Cohen Prize.
Paul Farley FRSL is a British poet, writer and broadcaster.
Julia Copus FRSL is a British poet, biographer and children's writer.
Sean O'Brien FRSL is a British poet, critic and playwright. Prizes he has won include the Eric Gregory Award (1979), the Somerset Maugham Award (1984), the Cholmondeley Award (1988), the Forward Poetry Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize (2007). He is one of only four poets to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same collection of poems.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Jean Sprackland is an English poet and writer, the author of five collections of poetry and two books of essays about place and nature.
Matthew Hollis is an English author, editor, professor, and poet, currently living in London, England.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Sarah Howe is a Chinese-British poet, editor and researcher in English literature. Her first full poetry collection, Loop of Jade (2015), won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Sunday Times / Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of The Year Award. It is the first time that the T. S. Eliot Prize has been given to a debut collection. She is currently a Leverhulme Fellow in English at University College London, as well as a trustee of The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry.
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Maura Dooley is a British poet and writer. She has published five collections of poetry and edited several anthologies. She is the winner of the Eric Gregory Award in 1987 and the Cholmondeley Award in 2016, and was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize in 1997 and again in 2015. Her poetry collections Life Under Water (2008) and Kissing A Bone (1996) were shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.