Ready for the T.S Eliot Prize

The first of the year's poetry higlights is fast approaching with the T.S.Eliot Prize Reading on Sunday at the Royal Festival hall.

There are, as always, ten books on the shortlist and I'm more agog than usual about this year's choices. So much so that I've managed to read three of them.

The weekend will begin on Saturday with the annual session organised by Katy Evans-Bush. I have been going to this for several years as Katy will have read and analysed all of the books so the day is a chance to read a selection of poems from each book as a group and to discuss the merits and otherwise of the short-listed titles. I've found it means you attend the reading on the Sunday in a much more informed state of mind. Last year I think we may have come up with an alternative winner to that of the official judges but that is all part of the fun.

I was enthusing about the weekend ahead to an academic colleague at work who smiled and said 'so you're off to be a poetry geek then'.  Guilty as charged.