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Winner of the Keats-Shelley Prize for poetry 2007
  

Richard Marggraf Turley has won first prize of £1000 in the prestigious Keats-Shelley Prize for poetry this year. His poem, entered under the competition topic of ’slavery’, was judged by the Prize Chairman, distinguished writer and critic A. N. Wilson. Richard, a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the Aberystwyth University, has previously been short-listed for the Keats-Shelley Prize and was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Poem published in 2006. This is the first time he has won the Keats-Shelley award.

Richard is co-author of Whiteout (Parthian, 2006) and is launching his first solo collection, The Fossil-Box (Cinnamon) this month. His work has received strong support from John Barnie and Robert Minhinnick. Poems from The Fossil-Box are focused on Richard’s ancestral Forest of Dean, and on the Ceredigion coast where he currently lives. A CD of settings of poems from The Fossil-Box is currently in production, and will be released by Cinnamon.

Sponsored by Barclays Bank PLC, The School of  English, University of St Andrew’s and The Cowley Foundation, the Keats-Shelley Prize is now in its tenth year. Previous winners of the award include Martin McRitchie, Martyn Halsall and Christopher Nield. Please visit the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association website for more information.

Richard Margraaf Turley was presented with the award in London in early November by A. N. Wilson.