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Thursday 29 December 2011

Favourite poems on a medical theme from entries in the 2012 Hippocrates initiative poll

@HealthMed To mark the launch of the 2012 International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, the organisers invited nominations of favourite poems with a medical theme. The top 5 favourites were:

Dylan Thomas – Do not go gentle into that good night
William Butler Yeats - When you are old
Dannie Abse - The Pathology of Colours
Jo Shapcott - Of mutability
Stevie Smith - Not waving but drowning


You can see examples of comments received and find links to many of the submitted favourite poems on the earlier blog on favourite poems on a medical theme.

'Medical' was to be interpreted in the broadest sense, with only one nomination to be made by any one person. Nominations were to be for poems written by a poet from anywhere in the world and in any language. The poem were to be contemporary or from any historical period.

The Hippocrates Prize of £5000 for the winning poem is one of the highest value awards in the world for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme.

Entries for the 2012 Awards are now closed. 2012 Hippocrates Prize judges include New York poet and critic Marilyn Hacker and medical researcher Professor Rod Flower, Fellow of the Royal Society. Awards will be presented on Saturday 12th May 2012 at the 3rd International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine, to be held at the Wellcome Collection in London.