Jacob Polley won the £20,000 (about $24,745) T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize for Jackself, his collection of "loosely autobiographical poems [that] use the 'Jack' of nursery rhyme and local legend to tell the story of a childhood in rural Cumbria," the Guardian reported.
Chair of judges Ruth Padel described Jackself as "a firework of a book; inventive, exciting and outstanding in its imaginative range and depth of feeling.... Rather like Geoffrey Hill's Mercian Hymns, he is looking at a childhood though a very English mythology. He has taken a word out of Gerard Manley Hopkins--'Jackself'--as the starting point for a collection that is incredibly inventive and very moving.
"It's a sort of autobiography, set in a place called Lamanby, but it's really like Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, where everything is strange. His mastery of phrase and rhythm and the control of line, combined with the hurts of childhood and his glee in inventive language, have taken his writing to a new level."
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The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators has announced winners of the 2017 Spark Award, which recognizes excellence in children's books published through non-traditional publishing platforms. The illustrated book winner is Soldier by Kara Van Kirk Levin, illustrated by Vlada Soshkina and Polina Doroshenko. The winning book for older readers is Through the Barricades by Denise Deegan. Levin and Deegan will be invited to take part in a book signing at an SCBWI conference this year, and will also receive free conference attendance, a Spark seal for their books, a press release and publicity through the SCBWI media networks.