Ts Eliot Prize Winner
The Drowned Book
by Sean O'Brien
Summary
Rooted in the industrial landscapes and waterways of the North-East of England, this collection conjures a world of docks, rivers, and historical ghosts, exploring the residues of working-class culture in a landscape of post-industrial loss. O'Brien's poetry is dense with literary and historical allusion but never academic—his imaginative world has the atmospheric pressure of a dream. The book made history as the first to win both the T. S. Eliot and Forward Prizes in the same year.
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Historical Context & Significance
O'Brien became the first person to win both the T.S. Eliot and the Forward Prize for the same book in the same year.