Trini up for TS Eliot prize
ANDRE BAG00 Wednesday, November 11 2015
TRINIDADIAN poet Vahni Capildeo has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize, one of the major poetry awards in the English- speaking world.
Capildeo has been shortlisted for a forthcoming book, Measures of Expatriation, due to be published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Carcanet.
Each year, the TS Eliot Prize shortlist comprises six to ten books, four of which are chosen based on quarterly selections by the Poetry Book Society, which administers the prize.
Capildeo’s book was announced on Monday as the Society’s recommended book for spring 2016, meaning it will automatically be among the books to be considered for the 2016 prize, due to be announced in 2017.
“I am surprised and very happy to hear this news,†Capildeo told Newsday in an interview from London.
The Trinidadian poet Nicholas Laughlin more than once has told me of his idea of the ‘Carter Line’ in Caribbean poetry – experimentalists who may be traced through Martin Carter to AJ Seymour, who of course was a correspondent of TS Eliot himself. It is a pleasure to feel this link lives in many ways.†Capildeo – who was born in Port-of-Spain in 1973 but moved to the United Kingdom in 1991 – has published four poetry collections, including Utter (Peepal Tree Press, 2013), Dark & Unaccustomed Words (Eggbox, 2012), Undraining Sea (Eggbox, 2009), and No Traveller Returns (Salt, 2003). She was a judge for the 2014 Forward Prize, and is a contributing editor to the Caribbean Review of Books.
Of her forthcoming collection, Capildeo said, “The acknowledgements list in this book is exceptionally long and that is because it is peopled with the voices and kindness of many poets, friends, and acquaintances.
Any recognition the book receives is their due. I’m also tremendously pleased to share a shortlist with some of my favourite writers.
I must thank the selectors, and of course Carcanet and the inimitable Michael Schmidt. This is not something that I ever looked for.†The TS Eliot Prize was inaugurated in 1993 by the Poetry Book Society in honour of TS Eliot, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948 and a poet regarded as one of the major poets of the twentieth century.
The GBP 20,000 award goes to the writer of the best book of poems in English for a particular year once that book has been first published in the United Kingdom.
Previous winners include Trinidadian poet Derek Walcott, who won in 2010 for White Egrets.
Jamaican-born poet Claudia Rankine is shortlisted for the 2015 prize, due to be announced in January.
(Rankine has won the Forward Prize 2015, one year after Jamaican poet Kei Miller won the same prize.) Other poets from the Caribbean to be shortlisted include: Fred D’Aguiar in 2009 and EA Markham in 2002 (Montserrat). Commenting on Capideo’s nomination, literary critic Professor Kenneth Ramchand said the TS Eliot prize is a key one in English literature.
“There is no doubt that this is the prize that every poet covets,†Ramchand said. “It is the prize that maintains the most rigorous standards while being open to a wide range of styles, and to the ‘highbrow’ as well as to the ‘popular’. It is not politically influenced nor does it operate a policy of rotation: you could win it three years in a row if you are good enough.†Of Capildeo’s output, Ramchand said, “It is a pleasure to see Vahni Capildeo in the line-up for 2016. “
