Poems inspired by Sudan artefacts; a collaborative journey in the footsteps of Japanese poet Basho; poetry exploring pottery and the potter’s craft; a collaborative radio poem about home; and an English retelling of a 2,000-year-old Hindu text are among the works shortlisted for this year’s Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry, it has been announced by the Poetry Society. The shortlisted writers are:

 

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi (poet), and Sarah Maguire (poet-translator) – He Tells Tales of Meroe

He Tells Tales of Meroe is a dual-language collection, produced by the Poetry Translation Centre, with poems written by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi whilst he was poet in residence at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London. The collection presents eight new poems in Arabic and English which were inspired by the museum’s collection of material from Meroe in Sudan, and one poem translated by Mark Ford from an earlier project. The poems are accompanied by photographs of the objects that inspired them, and recordings of the poems in both languages are also available as part of the project.

 

Chris Beckett – Sketches from the Poem Road

The exhibition, first shown in the Poetry Café in Covent Garden, and accompanying pamphlet published by Hagi Press, Sketches from the Poem Road, are the result of a creative collaboration between poet Chris Beckett and artist Isao Miura. Poet and artist set off on an interpretative journey in the footsteps of Matsuo Basho and his ‘Narrow Road to the Deep North’, which he undertook in spring 1689. Between them they travel from text to image, and often back again, creating an interwoven series of poems, translation, drawing and sculpture in the footsteps of the Japanese poet.

 

Elizabeth Burns – Clay

Clay is a short collection, published by Wayleave Press, of small, meditative poems exploring pottery and the potter’s craft. It was written by the poet Elizabeth Burns after she worked on a joint exhibition with painter Ann Gilchrist and potter Paul Tebble, and was published shortly before the poet’s death in August 2015.

 

Kate Clanchy – We are Writing a Poem about Home

We are Writing a Poem about Home is a collaborative radio poem created by Kate Clanchy for National Poetry Day 2015 and broadcast as part of the Between the Ears series of programmes on BBC Radio 3. Clanchy worked with the diverse students from Oxford Spires Academy – who have 54 languages between them – to create a radio poem about home: the homes and home countries they came from, and the new homes they have found, and the home they are making in their school and in their writing. It is produced by Jonquil Panting.

 

David Morley – The Invisible Gift: Selected Poems

Known for his energy and linguistic inventiveness, David Morley writes about diverse and fascinating subjects, from Romani tales to sharply observed lyrics about nature, from political allegory to vividly imagined histories. The Invisible Gift, published by Carcanet and containing poems from previous collections including The Gypsy and the Poet, Enchantment, The Invisible Kings and Scientific Papers, represents the different impact and form a Selected Poems can achieve compared to individual collections.

 

Carole Satyamurti – Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling

Originally composed approximately 2,000 years ago, the Mahabharata is an epic masterpiece that tells the story of a royal dynasty, descended from gods, whose feud over their kingdom results in a devastating war. A seminal Hindu text, which includes the Bhagavad Gita, it is also one of the most important and influential works in the history of world civilization. Innovatively composed in blank verse rather than prose, Carole Satyamurti’s English retelling, published by WW Norton & Company, covers all 18 books of the Mahabharata, capturing the beauty, excitement, and profundity of the original Sanskrit poem as well as its architecture and extraordinary scope.

 

This year’s judges are Jackie Kay, Andrew McMillan, and Ali Smith. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on 31 March, along with the winners of the National Poetry Competition. The £5,000 Ted Hughes award was established in 2009 by the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, and is funded with the annual payment that the laureate receives from the Queen. Previous winners of the £5,000 prize include Andrew Motion,Maggie Sawkins, and Kate Tempest.