The Michael Murphy Memorial Prize: First Award
On National Poetry Day 2010 the English Association announced the inauguration of a new biennial prize of £500 for a distinctive first volume of poetry in English published in Britain or Ireland – in the first instance between January 2008 and June 2011. The Prize was established by some of his colleagues at Nottingham Trent University, in honour of the Liverpool-born poet Michael Murphy, who died of a brain tumour, aged 43, in May 2009.
The English Association is pleased to announce the first winner of the prize:
CIARAN BERRY
THE SPHERE OF BIRDS
The Gallery Press: Oldcastle, Co Meath, 2008
The judges commented:
‘The Sphere of Birds is full of capacious but rigorously controlled poems in which, without strain or undue artifice, Ciaran Berry moves outward from the personal to a breadth of cultural and historical reference, before returning quietly to details of remembered experience. Far from being gratuitous or ostentatious, his literary range is purposefully engaged to cast light on the idiosyncrasies of human behaviour. Although this is a first collection, Berry is already a poised and mature lyric poet with a clear grasp of how a meticulous technique can be used to explore complex subjects.’
The Award will be presented on National Poetry Day, 6 October 2011.
The following collections were also shortlisted for the prize:
Rachael Boast, Sidereal (Picador)
Julie-ann Rowell, Letters North (Brodie)
Antony Rowland, The Land of Green Ginger (Salt)
Nerys Williams, Sound Archive (Seren)
Tony Williams, The Corner of Arundel Lane and Charles Street (Salt)
