Former Glasgow  Creative Writing MLitt student, Jen Hadfield (30) has won the 2008 T. S. Eliot Prize for poetry for her stunning second collection Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe, 2008).

Judges’ chairman and Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion called Hadfield "a remarkably original poet" as she was presented with a cheque for £15,000 at a ceremony at the Skinner's Hall in London.

Motion said Hadfield, who lives in Shetland, was "near the beginning of what is obviously going to be a distinguished career". The Independent said her anthology, with its "smattering of Shetland dialect", has an ability "to blow some of the dust off British verse".

The TS Eliot Prize is organised by the Poetry Book Society, which was founded by Eliot in 1953.

The University sends its congratulations to Jen – whose first collection, Almanacs (Bloodaxe Books, 2005) - was also widely praised.

Credit is also due to Professor Tom Leonard who was  Hadfield's tutor. Tom has mentored many excellent poets at Glasgow over the last ten years. In 2004 Eunice Buchanan won the McCash Scots Poetry competition, and among other recent excellent poetry graduates and current students are: Dorothy Alexander, Ed Clapp,  Jim Ferguson, Mandy Haggith, Nick E. Melville, Theresa Munoz, and Jennifer Williams.

Further information:
http://www.poetrybookshoponline.com/tseliot_prize_2008.asp

First published: 13 January 2009

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