Poet Sarah Howe has won the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize for her debut work Loop of Jade. This is the first time a first-time collection has won the award.
The book explores Howe’s experiences exploring her Anglo-Chinese heritage on trips to Hong Kong.
“In a year with an incredibly ambitious and diverse shortlist, it was difficult to choose the winner,” stated Pascale Petit, chair of the judges panel. “However Sarah Howe’s Loop of Jade shone with its startling exploration of gender and injustice through place and identity, its erudition, and powerful imagery as well as her daring experiment with form. She brings new possibilities to British poetry.”