T.S. Eliot Prize

The T.S. Eliot Prize is the United Kingdom's most prestigious and financially valuable annual poetry award, recognising the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland in any given year. Inaugurated in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society's fortieth anniversary and honour its founding poet, T.S. Eliot, it was originally administered by the Poetry Book Society before the T.S. Eliot Foundation took over administration in 2016 following the winding-up of the charity. The prize money was donated for many years by Eliot's widow, Valerie Eliot, and more recently by the T.S. Eliot Estate. The winner currently receives £25,000, making it the UK's richest annual poetry competition, while each of the ten shortlisted poets receives £1,500. The shortlist is announced each October, and on the evening before the winner is announced, all shortlisted poets give a reading at the Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre—an event that regularly draws audiences of over 2,000. The prize has been called 'the most coveted award in poetry' and has launched or cemented the reputations of numerous major poets. Past winners include Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Alice Oswald, Sharon Olds, Derek Walcott, and Ocean Vuong. The prize is open to collections by any living poet writing in English, providing the work was first published in the UK or Ireland, making it one of the few major British poetry prizes with genuine international reach.