Old Member wins prestigious poetry prize

The five winners of the Costa Book Awards, once known as the Whitbread Awards, have been announced this month.

Christopher Reid (1968, English) won the poetry award for A Scattering, a tribute to his wife following her death in 2005. A Scattering consists of four poetic sequences, the first written during her final illness, and the other three at intervals after her death.

The judges, chaired by novelist Josephine Hart, described the collection of poems as “intensely moving, compelling and honest”.

The five winners were selected from 592 entries, and will now fight for the title 2009 Costa Book of the Year.

Christopher Reid’s first collection, Arcadia, received the Somerset Maugham Award and the Hawthornden Prize, and he was presented with the 2000 Signal Poetry Award for his collection written for children. He has twice been nominated for the Whitbread Awards.