'Passionate' poems scoop £10,000

The Glasgow writer beat poets including Polly Clark, David Harsent and Sinead Morrissey to the £10,000 prize.

Rapture was described as "coherent and passionate" by judges who named it the best collection of new poetry published in the UK and Ireland.

Awarded by the Poetry Book Society, the prize was presented by TS Eliot's widow Valerie at a London ceremony.

Acclaimed playwright

Duffy, 50, read philosophy at Liverpool University before editing poetry magazine Ambit.

She previously won the Whitbread Poetry Award and Forward Poetry Prize for her 1993 collection Mean Time. She was made an OBE in 1995.

Duffy is also an acclaimed playwright, having written works such as Take My Husband, Loss and Little Women, Big Boys.

"It re-animates and continues a long tradition of the poetry of love and loss"
David Constantine,
TS Eliot Prize chair of judges

Rapture is a highly personal collection of love poems which move from first encounters to rows, adultery, parting and recrimination.

David Constantine, chair of the judges, said: "In the language and circumstances of our day and age, it re-animates and continues a long tradition of the poetry of love and loss."

TS Eliot was a founder member of the Poetry Book Society in 1953.

The awards were introduced in 1993 to mark its 40th anniversary, with past winners including Ted Hughes, Don Paterson and Alice Oswald.

RELATED INTERNET LINKS:
Poetry Book Society
Poetry
Radio 3: The Verb
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites