Log In
enter online print entry form buy anthology
Bridport Prize 2008 Judge
Poems
David Harsent
Photograph by Kitty Sullivan
David Harsent has published nine collections of poetry. The
most recent, Legion, won the Forward Prize for best collection
2005 and was shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot and Whitbread
Awards. His Selected Poems was published by Faber in June 2007.
His work in music theatre has involved collaborations with a
number of composers, but most often with Harrison Birtwistle, and
has been performed at the Royal Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the
Proms, the Kammeroper (Vienna), and on BBC2 and Channel 4 TV. A
new opera, The Minotaur (also with Birtwistle) will open at ROH
in April 2008. Work in progress includes a novel, The Wormhole; a
projected triptych for Music Theatre Wales entitled Crime Fiction
(in collaboration with the composer Huw Watkins) and a new
collection of poems. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature and the Distinguished Writing Fellow at Sheffield
Hallam.
David says: 'All writing is about re-writing, so I'll be looking for a poem that doesn't have about it the whiff of a first draft, or second (or, for that matter, a third). I'll also be looking for those unmistakeable lines that fall to hand when the poet has gone further and deeper than description or argument or even subject: when, in other words, he or she has broken through into the poem itself. Which means I'll be hoping to find something that makes me shiver with sudden recognition.'
 | The Bridport Prize is a fundraiser for Bridport Arts Centre, charity no 1069780 |