Up-Hill Tussle for the Forward Prize
He may not be the bookies' favourite but Barry Hill is in contention for the UK's Forward Prize for Poetry. Oddly enough, two other people named Hill have also been shortlisted this year: Selima Hill, and Geoffrey Hill, who was also shortlisted last year. Beverley Bie Brahic and Jorie Graham round out the list.
The Forward Prize was 'created in 1991 to bring contemporary poetry to a wider audience'. The competition is open to both established and emerging poets, and the winner in the best collection category will take home £10,000 in prize money. Hill's collection of poems, Naked Clay: Drawing from Lucian Freud, was inspired by Freud's paintings.
The announcement of the winner will take place in London, on 3 October, the eve of the UK's National Poetry Day. Previous winners of the best collection category include Seamus Heaney, Carol Ann Duffy and Ted Hughes.
Other awards include a £5,000 prize for best first collection, and a £1,000 prize for best single poem. John Kinsella has been shortlisted for the single poem award, for his work 'Mea Culpa: Cleaning the Gutters'.
(Image credit for photograph of Barry Hill, above: Susan Gordon-Brown, Barry Hill. Photograph, gelatin silver, 2004. Courtesy of Digital Collections, National Library of Australia.)