Alice Oswald wins inaugural Ted Hughes award (UK)

"The inaugural Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry, founded by Carol Ann Duffy, has gone to Alice Oswald, a nature poet who writes "very much in the tradition" of Hughes, according to the poet laureate. Oswald won the GBP5,000 prize, funded with Duffy's yearly stipend from the Queen, for Weeds and Wild Flowers, in which she has imagined the characters behind the evocative names of common plants and flowers. Judges considered radio poems, film poems, public art inscriptions and works for the stage for the prize, intended to reward "the most exciting contribution to poetry" in the past year. Oswald's collection, interspersed with etchings by Jessica Greenman, was selected ahead of shortlisted poets including former laureate Andrew Motion with his collection The Cinder Path, and Jackie Kay's bringing together of verse, music and theatre The Maw Broon Monologues." - Guardian