Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, and The Poetry School launch The Laurel Prize

We are delighted to be able to announce the launch of The Laurel Prize and honoured to be collaborating with Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage on one of his headline projects.

The Laurel Prize will be an award for the best collection of environmental, ecopoetry, or nature poetry. The Prize will further the discourse around climate crisis, environmental, and ecological topics and aims to bring environmental messages to new audiences. Simon has pledged his Laureate’s Honorarium of £5,000 each year to support the project.

The Laurel Prize will be awarded annually, with a First Prize of £5,000, a Second Prize of £2,000 and a Third Prize of £1,000. The Prize will be run by the Poetry School, following the success of the annual Ginkgo Prize for Ecopoetry (a Prize for best single Ecopoem). More details can be found at https://laurelprize.com

‘We couldn’t be more thrilled and honoured to be working with Simon on this incredible project. Poetry is the ideal mechanism to convey the potential devastation and disaster of the climate crisis; only with poetic imagination can we envisage such a future, propose creative solutions to the impending catastrophe, and bring these important messages to all audiences. It is wonderful that the Poet Laureate has chosen to embrace this critical cause for the future of our planet.’ – Sally Carruthers, Executive Director, Poetry School.