Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
The Environmental Poet of the Year prize
2023 – 2024
Open for Entries
Prize
• Publication of your portfolio as a pamphlet, to be sold at Wordsworth Grasmere and The British Library
• £1,000*
• A place on a winners’ residential trip to Greece in association with the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, with the opportunity to learn more about, and spread understanding of, how the climate crisis is affecting other cultures
• Invitation to read at a special ‘Environmental Poet of the Year’ event at Wordsworth Grasmere, as well as at the annual Michael Marks Awards event at the British Library in London.
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The Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets were established in 2009 to promote the pamphlet form and to enable poets and publishers both to develop and to continue creating. Since then, they have grown to include four awards, which in 2023 are for ‘Poetry Pamphlet’, ‘Publisher’, ‘Illustration’ and ‘Environmental Poet of the Year’, carrying prizes of up to £5,000, and awarding places on the Michael Marks Poets in Residence Program in Greece.
The Awards are made possible with the generous support of the Michael Marks Charitable Trust, and through partnerships between the British Library, the Wordsworth Trust, The TLS and the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, and in association with the National Library of Wales and the National Library of Scotland.
Find out more about the history and ethos of the Awards
The 2022 Awards
The winners were announced at a free hybrid event, both in person and live online, at the British Library on Friday, December 9th 2022.
Watch again: video of the 2022 Awards Night
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The Environmental Poet of the Year prize 2022 – 2023
The current winner Linda France’s winning portfolio Letters to Katłįà is available as a pamphlet from the British Library and Wordsworth Grasmere shops. For telephone orders, please call Wordsworth Grasmere and ask for the shop: 015394 35544
Letters to Katłįà, the winner’s pamphlet
The 2023 – 2024 prize is currently open for entries
In 2022 we piloted this new prize, for an unpublished small portfolio of poetry on the subject of ‘The environment and place of the human within it’
Prize
• £1,000 • Publication of the winning portfolio in a pamphlet to be sold at Wordsworth Grasmere and The British Library
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The Awards 2021
The Michael Marks Poetry Award
recognises an outstanding poetry pamphlet published in the UK. The winning poet receives £5,000 and is awarded a place as ‘Michael Marks Poet in Residence at the Harvard Center of Hellenic Studies in Greece’
The Michael Marks Publishers’ Award
recognises an outstanding UK publisher of poetry in pamphlet form. The winning publisher will receive a cheque for £5,000.
The Michael Marks Greek Bicentennial Prizes
These one-off awards recognised outstanding portfolios of both poetry and illustrations on the subject of the Greeks. The winners received £10,000 and £5,000.
The Michael Marks Illustration Award
recognises outstanding illustration of a poetry pamphlet. The winning illustrator receives £1,000
“These inspired awards recognise that the pamphlet has a fundamental importance in literary culture far exceeding anything suggested by the dictionary – “a brief publication, generally having a paper cover”. For many of the best poets now writing it was not only their first means of distribution but the first ratification of their gift.”
– Seamus Heaney
The Greek Connection
The Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies is based in Nafplio, Greece. In 2009, in collaboration with the Michael Marks Charitable Trust and the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere, it created the ‘Michael Marks Poets in Residence’ program. Since then, UK poets who have won either the Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlets or, from 2019, the Michael Marks Poetry in a Celtic Language Award, have participated in the ‘Michael Marks Poets in Residence Program’ at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece.
As resident poets, winners spend two weeks between historic Nafplio, Olympia, Delphi, and Athens, visiting and learning about these sites of interest and participating in local cultural activities.
