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Seren Author John Haynes Wins the 2006 Costa Poetry Award

Seren author John Haynes has won the 2006 Costa Poetry Award for his inspirational collection of poetry Letter to Patience. Haynes beat Seamus Heaney, Hugo Williams and Vicki Feaver to take the highly prestigious award and £5,000 prize.

His success was announced on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row programme. Haynes now goes forward with the winners of the Novel, First Novel, Biography and Children’s Book categories to compete for the 2006 Costa Book of the Year. The winner of the £25,000 prize will be revealed on February 7th at an award ceremony in London.

The Costa Award judges called Letter to Patience a “unanimous choice and a clear winner; a unique long poem of outstanding quality, condensing a lifetime of reflection and experience into a work of transporting momentum, imaginative lucidity, and consummate formal accomplishment”. One of the judges, Elaine Feinstein, says that “we were knocked out by the ease with which he could control the pace of his three–line verse and the richness of the things he remembers about Nigeria”. (The Times)

Headlines from the national papers include “Haynes beats Heaney to Costa Crown” (Guardian) and “Poet’s letter from an African bar beats literati to take top prize” (The Times). John says “it is wonderful to win, I felt quite surprised and very elated. It means lots of people will read the book and I should like to be invited to do poetry readings.” (Guardian)

Amy Wack, poetry editor at Seren said: “it’s a fabulous book. It’s such a comprehensive view of a country”. Mick Felton, publisher said “we’re thrilled and delighted for John, for Seren and for independent publishers everywhere”.

The five Costa Book Award winners, each of whom will receive £5,000, were selected from 580 entries, the highest total ever received in one year. The five books are now eligible for the ultimate prize – the 2006 Costa Book of the Year. To mark the first year as sponsor of the Book Awards, Costa has created a bespoke book featuring the opening chapters of each of the five 2006 Costa Award-winning books in a collection entitled The Finalists. The book will be available in Costa outlets from 11th January 2007 at a retail price of £1.00. All proceeds from sales of The Finalists will go to The Costa Foundation, established to support and improve the social and economic welfare of Costa’s coffee suppliers in developing countries.

For more information click here to visit the Seren website