Two Poets Withdraw From TS Eliot Prize

Posted on December 10, 2011

Two poets have withdrawn from consideration for the TS Eliot Prize, which is awarded annually by the Poetry Book Society (UK). Both poets withdrew to protest the prize being sponsored by Aurum Funds, an investment firm. The TS Eliot Prize turned to the corporate sponsorship after losing its regular funding by the Arts Council.

BBC News reports that Alice Oswald withdrew from the competition on December 6th. She won the TS Eliot Prize in 2002. Australian poet John Kinsella withdrew from the competition on December 8. BBC News reports that Kinsella said, "I regret that I must do this at a particularly difficult time for the Poetry Book Society (PBS), but the business of Aurum does not sit with my personal politics and ethics."

A Telegraph article notes that TS Eliot worked for Lloyd's bank for the first half of his life.