TS Eliot Prize: Roger Robinson wins poetry award for collection reflecting on Grenfell
Roger Robinson has been awarded the TS Eliot Prize for A Portable Paradise, which includes a series of poems reflecting on the Grenfell Tower fire.
Robinson wins the £25,000 prize for his second collection, praised by the judges for “find[ing] in the bitterness of everyday experience continuing evidence of ‘sweet, sweet life’.”
Published by Peepal Tree Press, an independent publisher devoted to Caribbean and Black British writing, the wide-ranging collection covers the personal - Robinson’s admiration for an NHS nurse who helped nurse his son - to broader topics such as the purpose of art.
Working as a writer and performer, Robinson lives between London and Trinidad and is a co-founder of the international writing collective Malika’s Kitchen.
As is tradition, the shortlist and winner of the prize is decided by a panel of fellow poets, with John Burnside, Sarah Howe and Nick Makoha making the choices this year.
Each poet on the shortlist receives £1,500, with all of the prize money given by the TS Eliot foundation. The other poets on the shortlist this year were Anthony Anaxagorou, Fiona Benson, Jay Bernard, Paul Farley, Ilya Kaminsky, Sharon Olds, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Deryn Rees-Jones and Karen Solie.
Last year’s prize went to Hannah Sullivan for her debut collection Three Poems.
A Portable Paradise
And if I speak of Paradise,
then I’m speaking of my grandmother
who told me to carry it always
on my person, concealed, so
no one else would know but me.
That way they can’t steal it, she’d say.
And if life puts you under pressure,
trace its ridges in your pocket,
smell its piney scent on your handkerchief,
hum its anthem under your breath.
And if your stresses are sustained and daily,
get yourself to an empty room – be it hotel,
hostel or hovel – find a lamp
and empty your paradise onto a desk:
your white sands, green hills and fresh fish.
Shine the lamp on it like the fresh hope
of morning, and keep staring at it till you sleep.
(From Roger Robinson’s A Portable Paradise reproduced with permission from Peepal Tree Press)
