The Laurel Prize 2023 – winners!
UK Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, and the Poetry School, are delighted to announce the winners of the annual nature and ecopoetry prize, The Laurel Prize.
The Laurel Prize is funded by Simon Armitage’s Laureate’s honorarium, which he receives annually from the King, and the prize is run by the Poetry School. It is awarded to the best collection of environmental or nature poetry published that year. The Laurel Prize 2023 was judged by the poets Pascale Petit (Chair), Nick Laird, and Journalist & Presenter Reeta Chakrabarti.
The prize awards £5,000 (1st prize), £2,000 (2nd prize), and £1,000 (3rd prize). There’s also a £500 award each for the Best First Collection UK and Best International First Collection. In addition, each of the winners receive a commission from the AONB to create a poem based on their favourite landscape.
A Prize Ceremony and day of poetry readings and workshops was part of this year’s BBC Contains Strong Language festival in Leeds on September 22.
The shortlist and longlist follow below.
Announced in August 2023, the longlist follows (in no particular order) in the graphics below.
