The TS Eliot poetry prizes goes to Philip Gross

19 January 2010


Philip Gross has been awarded the 2009 TS Eliot prize for his poetry collection "The Water Table", a poem inspired by the Bristol Channel.


The annual TS Eliot prize is considered to be the biggest and best award in British poetry and comes with a £15,000 cash prize. Gross was presented with the prize by TS Eliot's widow Valerie Eliot at an awards ceremony at the Wallace Collection in London on Monday.


The prize money for the award is given by Valerie Eliot, who also presented each of the other nine contenders with £1,000.

 

The 10 finalists were:

  • The Water Table - Philip Gross
  • A Scattering - Christopher Reid
  • Through the Square Window - Sinéad Morrissey
  • One Secret Thing - Sharon Olds
  • The Burning of the Books - George Szirtes
  • West End Final - Hugo Williams
  • The Sun-Fish - Eiléan Ní Chuilleánain
  • Weeds and Wild Flowers - Alice Oswald
  • Continental Shelf - Fred D'Aguiar
  • Over - Jane Draycott