Kitching, Pickens awarded in Laurel Prize

Aotearoa New Zealand poets Megan Kitching and Robyn Maree Pickens are among prize recipients for the annual UK nature and environmental poetry award, the Laurel Prize.

The 2024 winners are:

First prize (£5000; $A9729)

• Ruin, Blossom (John Burnside, Jonathan Cape)

Second prize (£2000; A$3892)

• Lapwing (Hannah Copley, Pavilion Poetry)
  

Third prize (£1000; A$1946)

• Tung (Robyn Maree Pickens, Otago University Press)

Best First Collection UK (£500; A$972)

• Food for the Dead (Charlotte Shevchenko Knight, Jonathan Cape)
  

Best International First Collection (£500; A$972)

• At the Point of Seeing (Megan Kitching, Otago University Press).

The Laurel Prize recognises ‘the best collection of environmental or nature poetry published each year’, and the winners were selected from a shortlist announced earlier this month. In addition to the prize money, winners will receive a commission from National Landscapes to create a poem based on their favourite UK landscape.

The prize is run by the Poetry School and funded by Simon Armitage’s honorarium as UK Poet Laureate, which he receives annually from King Charles III.

More information is available on the prize website.

Category: Awards Local news