Save the date: Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine to be awarded at Harvard on 6th May 2017

In a joint launch in the UK and in the USA, the judges for the 2017 International Open and Health Professional Awards have been announced as Neal Baer, Harvard-trained American paediatrician and ER producer, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Jorie Graham; Scottish Makar (national poet) Jackie Kay; and Professor Owen Lewis, New York, USA.  The 2017 Hippocrates Young Poets Judge will be judged by poet Maya Catherine Popa, New York City, USA (see details about the judges).

There have already been entries from 14 countries for the 2017 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine - deadline 12mn local time on 14th February.

The Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, has an awards fund of £5,500 (~USD 7,500). To find out more about the Hippocrates Prize and to enter online, see hippocratespoetry.wordpress.com

In the UK, clinical pharmacologist and prize co-founder Donald Singer said: “We are delighted to have such a distinguished panel of poets and health professionals as judges for the 2017 Hippocrates Prize.”

Harvard physician and poet Rafael Campo added: “ The Arts and Humanities Initiative of Harvard Medical School is very pleased to be supporting this major international prize, and to be hosting the awards ceremony, which will for the first time be presented in the USA.”

The 2017 Hippocrates Awards are being organised in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Initiative of Harvard Medical School. The Awards will announced by the judges at a ceremony at Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA, on Saturday 6th May 2017.

There will also be a pre-Symposium Poetry and Medicine Workshop at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston: Friday 5th May – 6.30pm.

Download flyer for Symposium, awards, and pre-Symposium Poetry Workshop at Boston Museum of Fine Art.

Now in its 8th year, the Hippocrates Prize has attracted over 8000 entries from around the world, from the Americas to Fiji and Finland to Australasia. All awards are for a single unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines of verse on a medical theme.

The International Open category is open to anyone in the world to enter. There have been entries from over 60 countries since the Hippocrates Prize was launched in 2009, with winning poets from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the UK and the USA.

The International Health Professional category is open to any in the world who is a Health Professional  employees, a health student or working in a professional organisation or charity involved in education and training of health professional students and staff or in supporting the care of patients.

The international Young Poet category: anyone in the world may enter who is aged under 19 years and at least 14 years old on the date of the Awards (6th May 2017). This £500 (~690 USD) award was launched in 2012. The 2017 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine is supported by the healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust.

Notes for editors
For more on the Hippocrates Prize and the 2017 judges, contact +44 7494 450 805 or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

The 2017 Hippocrates Prize is supported by:
- UK philanthropist Anthony Fretwell-Downing.
- The Arts and Humanities Initiative of Harvard Medical School.
- Healthy Heart Charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust, founded in 1996, which promotes research and education  for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation.

More on the Judges for the 2017 Hippocrates Prize

Poetry to prevent childhood obesity? The Healthy Heart Poetry Project.

Unhealthy lifestyle in children increases risk of premature and preventable heart disease in later life. Since 2011, 22 schools have received Healthy Heart Awards from the healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust. Schools participating in the Healthy Heart initiative receive a Healthy Heart Award certificate to recognize their interest in education about how to keep the heart healthy.




Healthy heart poetry for schools was a theme during the 6th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine held in London on 22nd May 2015. 


Listen to the talk on healthy hearts for schools 

Poet Wendy French described a schools project she undertook with 2015 Hippocrates Prize

Wendy French

judge Rebecca Goss as part of a collaboration between the healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust and the Hippocrates Initiative. Raphael Shirley read poems by children from the edited anthology Love your Heart which arose from the project.


The Cardiovascular Research Trust established Healthy Heart Poetry in 2013 in partnership with the Hippocrates Initiative. The aim of the Healthy Heart Poetry initiative is to encourage interest among children of all ages in lifestyle that helps to keep the heart healthy.

There is now an annual Healthy Heart Poetry event at which the children have the opportunity to read their poems from the published Anthology, and Healthy Heart Awards are presented to participating schools. Selected poems are published in an anthology, the first of which, Love your Heart, was published in December 2014. 

The Poetry and Medicine Symposium was held to mark the announcement of the winners of the 2015 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. The Hippocrates Prize is an annual award with a closing date of 31st January 2016 for the 2016 Hippocrates Prize.

See more about entering for the 2016 Hippocrates Prize. 



With a 1st prize of £5000 for the winning poem in the Open International category of  £5,000, £5000 for the 1st Prize in the NHS category, and £500 for the Young Poets Award the Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem. In its first 5 years, the Hippocrates Prize has attracted over 6000 entries from over 60 countries, from the Americas to Fiji and Finland to Australasia.

Simon Rae discussing poetry, medicine, and entries for the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize

There have been entries this year from Young Poets from 10 countries for the Young Poets Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine  - from Australia to Canada and the USA. 

You can now hear 2015 Young Poets Judge Simon Rae discussing medicine as a theme for poetry, and the Young Poets Prize, with award co-founders Donald Singer and Michael Hulse. 

In an audio interview Simon Rae notes the emotional response of the poets, and the authority and authenticity in their poetry. He also discusses use of imagery in the poems, and their relevance to a universal audience.

In a further discussion on YouTube, Simon reads extracts from shortlisted poems from the USA and from England.

Simon Rae

Simon Rae is a poet, biographer, broadcaster, playwright and novelist. He presented Poetry Please! on Radio 4 for many years and wrote rude poems about politicians for the Guardian newspaper for even longer.
In 1999 he won the National Poetry Competition after twice coming runner-up. His collection, Gift Horses, was published in 2006. More recently he has written three novels for younger readers, Unplayable, Keras and Medusa’s Butterfly, and his first detective story, Bodyline, comes out in spring 2015.

2014 Hippocrates Open, NHS and Young Poet Prize for Poetry and Medicine awarded in London

The £5000 2014 Open International Hippocrates first prize has been awarded to UK-based poet Jane Draycott. The second prize was won by UK poet Ailsa Holland and the third prize was shared by New York poet Stephanie Gangi and South African poet Karen Nel. 

Jane Draycott with Philip Gross ©Hippocrates Prize

The Hippocrates Prize is one of the most valuable poetry prizes in the world, with a yearly purse of £15000. Jane Draycott’s winning poem The Return concerns the many sanatoria around the world left standing very much as the day they were abandoned decades ago, remaining as if on stand-by for whenever their time comes again. The International Hippocrates Open Awards were presented by poet Philip Gross at an International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine at the Royal Society of Medicine in London.
More on the 2014 Hippocrates Awards 

Ellen Storm with Robert Francis QC ©Hippocrates Prize

The £5000 2014 Hippocrates NHS first prize has been awarded to trainee paediatrician Ellen Storm from Liverpool for her new poem Out of Hospital Arrest. The second prize was won by Valerie Laws from Tyne and Wear and the third prize went to Belfast poet and dentist Paula Cunningham. The Hippocrates NHS Awards were presented by barrister Robert Francis QC at an International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine at the Royal Society of Medicine in London on Saturday May 10th

Now in its 5th year, winners for the 2014 Hippocrates NHS and Open Prize for Poetry and Medicine were selected by judges poet Philip Gross, barrister Robert Francis QC and Mumsnet Editor Sarah Crown from over 1000 entries from 31 countries. 

Philip Gross, Robert Francis & Sarah Crown ©Hippocrates Prize

The judges also agreed 20 commendations in the NHS category, and 21 in the Open International category, from England, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, the USA, New Zealand and Australia.

Judge Philip Gross said: ‘Reading the stronger poems in the Open and the NHS categories, I see how many of their qualities they share. Dedicated poet or health professional – maybe each needs the same disciplines of observation and exactness, care and a right handling of emotions, the ability to get up close and yet step back and see it whole.’ Judge Sarah Crown commented: ‘We think of healthcare first and foremost as a scientific arena; a realm of dosages, diagnoses, instruments and odds. The real pleasure of these poems for me was the way in which they made the case for the place, within this arena, of the personal and the beautiful, too.

‘Reading them awakened me to the stories behind the science, and I found myself in tears on more than one occasion. Congratulations to everyone who submitted a poem, and particularly to the winners.’  Judge Robert Francis QC remarked "What a celebration of the partnership between patients and those who care for them and their shared will to overcome the frailties which we all have to face!”

Donald Singer, Hippocrates Prize co-founder and President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, the major patron of the Hippocrates Initiative said "The FPM is delighted that in its 5th year, Hippocrates Open Awards continue to reach out to poets, health professionals and the public around the world.

Hippocrates Prize co-founder poet Michael Hulse added: “The Prize’s first five years have shown how extraordinarily illuminating the complementarity of the disciplines of poetry and medicine can be.” 

Conor McKee has been awarded the inaugural 2014 International Hippocrates Young Poets £500 Prize. 18 year old Conor studies English literature at Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge in England. 

Philip Gross with Conor McKee ©Hippocrates Prize

This new International Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme by poets aged 14 to 18 years. The 2014 Prize attracted entries from England, Ireland, and Scotland, Israel, Italy, Nigeria, South Africa and the USA. It is one of the most valuable poetry awards in the world for young poets.

Commenting on the inspiration behind his poem, I Will Not Cut for Stone, Conor said: “ this poem expresses my own fears about the life of a surgeon and my interest in understanding the mechanics of the human body."

The Hippocrates International Young Poet Award and three Young Poet Commendations were presented by poet Philip Gross at an International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine at the Royal Society of Medicine in London on Saturday May 10th.

This year’s poems were judged by adult and children’s author, and winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Kit Wright.

Kit Wright

Kit said of the entered poems: ‘It was a remarkable experience to judge these poems, highly various in their approaches, both stylistically and in their choice of subject. The world of medicine is an extraordinarily rich one for the writer, and these young poets have produced some extraordinarily assured and compelling responses to it.’

Donald Singer, Hippocrates Prize co-founder and President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, the major patron of the Hippocrates Initiative said "The FPM is delighted with the success and international reach of this second year of the Hippocrates Young Poets Award. 

Hippocrates Prize co-founder poet Michael Hulse added: “We are delighted that the Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is having a growing international impact in inspiring a new generation of poets.”

Of the inspiration for his poem Nothing Happened, commended Young Poet Joseph Davison-Duddles remarked: ‘My poem seeks to place silences and utterances in a narrative of childhood and illness’.

Joseph is sixteen and studies at Queen Elizabeth College in Darlington. In 2013 he received both a Foyle Young Poets commendation and Young People First Place in the Ledbury Poetry Competition.

Commended Young Poet Molly Garbutt said of her poem, Cadaver: ‘It stemmed from discussion with my Biology teacher about medical school, and dissecting cadavers, and from my love of writing about the supernatural.’

Molly studies at Hereford Sixth Form College and hopes to study Veterinary Medicine. She has been shortlisted for several poetry awards, including the COMPAS Schools Prize for Poetry.

Commended Young Poet poet Talin Tahajian is at school in Massachusetts in the USA. Her poem ‘Dream …’  was inspired by her grandfather’s experience of lymphoma.

Her poetry is published by PANK, Hobart and The Adroit Journal. In the autumn she plans to attend Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge where she will study English. 

Notes to editors

For photos of all NHS and Open International Young Poet finalists, biographies and extracts of their poems, contact 0759 0478078, 07447 441666 or hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

The Hippocrates Initiative – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the relationship between medicine and poetry - hippocrates-poetry.org

About the Hippocrates Open Prize winner

Jane Draycott  is a UK-based poet with a particular interest in sound art and collaborative work. Her collections include No Theatre (Smith/Doorstop) and from Carcanet Press, Prince Rupert's Drop, The Night Tree and Over, short-listed for the 2009 TS Eliot Prize.  Nominated three times for the Forward Poetry Prizes, she was a PBS 'Next Generation' poet 2004 and second prize-winner in the National Poetry Competition 2012.  Other collections, from Two Rivers Press, include Christina the Astonishing, co-written with Lesley Saunders, and Tideway with images by Peter Hay. Her translation of the medieval dream-elegy Pearl (2011), was a PBS Recommended Translation and winner of a Times Stephen Spender Prize. She lives in Henley on Thames.

About the Hippocrates NHS Prize winner

Dr Ellen Storm is training in Paediatrics and Child Health in Liverpool, and is the mother of three-year-old twin girls. Ellen has had poems published in magazines including Assent, The Interpreter’s House, The Reader, Frogmore Papers, Orbis and The Warwick Review. She has one forthcoming in Obsessed with Pipework, has recently contributed two to the online collaborative arts project The Egg, The Womb, The Head and The Moon (weeks 27 and 30), and will be contributing to the forthcoming Writing Motherhood project. She was commended in the 2013 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. 

About the Hippocrates Young Poet Winner

Conor McKee comes from Kent and studies English literature at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Poetry has been a significant force in his life since childhood when his parents frequently read to him. He was first encouraged to write poetry at the school creative writing society. In 2012 he won the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award and was subsequently commended in 2013. He also gained second prize in the Young Persons section of the Ledbury Poetry Competition in 2012. His critical interests are focused on late medieval and modernist verse.

The Hippocrates Prize judgesPhilip Gross’s The Water Table won the T.S. Eliot Prize 2009, I Spy Pinhole Eye Wales Book of The Year 2010, and Off Road to Everywhere the CLPE Award for Children’s Poetry 2011. Deep Field (2011) deals with voice and language, explored through his father’s aphasia, and a new collection, Later, was published by Bloodaxe in Autumn 2013. He has published ten novels for young people, including The Lastling, has collaborated with artists, musicians and dancers, and since 2004 has been Professor of Creative Writing at Glamorgan University. 

Robert Francis QC is a distinguished barrister who specialises in the NHS and medical negligence. He has been a Queen's Counsel for 21 of his 40 years at the bar. He has been involved in many inquiries into the NHS, both as barrister and as chair, most recently chairing the inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire Hospital. According to Peter Walsh, chief executive of the patient safety charity Action against Medical Accidents, Robert Francis has a "passion for justice in healthcare and improving healthcare more generally". 

Sarah Crown is editor of http://www.mumsnet.com/. She was editor of the guardian.co.uk/books from 2007 to 2013. Previous poetry awards for which she has been a member of the judging panels include the Forward Prizes and the Picador Poetry Prize.

Hippocrates Young Poet judge

Kit Wright is the author of more than twenty-five books, for both adults and children, and the winner of awards including an Arts Council Writers' Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award and (jointly) the Heinemann Award. After a scholarship to Oxford, he worked as a lecturer in Canada, then returned to England and a position in the Poetry Society.  In June 2014, to mark his seventieth birthday, Kit Wright publishes a new collection of poems, Ode to Didcot Power Station, with Bloodaxe Books.

Hippocrates Prize founders

Professor Donald Singer is President of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, the main patron of the Hippocrates Prize. His interests include research on discovery of new therapies, and public understanding of drugs, health and disease. He co-authors the drug prescribing guide Pocket Prescriber, the 7th edition of which was published by Taylor & Francis in May 2014.

Michael Hulse is a poet and translator of German literature, and is Professor of creative writing and comparative literature at the University of Warwick. He is also editor of The Warwick Review. His latest collection of poetry, Half Life, was chosen as a Book of the Year by John Kinsella.

2014 Hippocrates Prize is supported by:

The Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, a national medical society founded in 1918 and publisher of the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology, has supported the Hippocrates Prize since its launch in 2009.

The Healthy Heart Charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust, founded in 1996, which promotes research and education for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation. 

More on the 2014 Hippocrates Awards 

Hippocrates Society for Poetry and Medicine launched

The Hippocrates Society forPoetry and Medicine provides an international forum for people from anywhere in the world interested in the interface between poetry and medicine. To find out more about the Hippocrates Society, email the organizers.

Activities

Activities of interest to members include an annual international symposium on poetry and medicine, workshops, readings, and reduced cost of publications by the Hippocrates Press. Members also have discounted registration for the awards for the annual Hippocrates Prize which has 3 categories: an international Open category, an international Young Poets award, and a UK NHS category.

Membership

The annual membership subscription of the Hippocrates Society for Poetry and Medicine includes

- one free copy of the current year's Hippocrates Prize Anthology

- 20% discount on Hippocrates Press publications

- 20% discount on registration for Hippocrates initiative events, including the annual International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine, Hippocrates Prize awards, workshops, readings and other events.

Pending events eligible for 20% discount on registration include 

- Hippocrates in Venice workshop 21st - 22nd September 2013

- 5th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine: May 2014

- 2014 Hippocrates Prize awards: May 2014

Subscription: 1st July 2013 - 30th June 2014

Standard membership - £40

Student - undergraduate or PhD - £30

Retired - £30

Hippocrates in Venice: workshop on poetry and medicine

Hippocrates in Venice

Weekend of Saturday 21^st – Sunday 22^nd September

Venue: 15^th Century Palazzo Ca' Pesaro Papafava
For more information: email the organizers.

15^th Century Palazzo Ca' Pesaro Papafava

Aims of the workshop

This workshop is designed as a scoping and networking event to take forward the work of the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine.

The four annual International Symposia on Poetry and Medicine held since 2010 by the Hippocrates Initiative have shown that there is a substantial wish for an international umbrella association that would serve as a switchboard for the gathering, coordination and dissemination of information in the field, and to institute activities that further an understanding of relations between poetry and medicine.

The Venice workshop will principally be a two-day exchange of views aimed at establishing the priorities an umbrella association ought to have, identifying focal interests for potential research groups and working parties, and identifying interests for exploration in subsequent workshops.

There will be a small number of talks but the emphasis will be on discussion and consultation. Themes to be considered by speakers and during break-out sessions and round table discussions will include historical perspectives, epidemics of infection from the plague of Athens to syphilis, tuberculosis and HIV-AIDS, and modern non-infectious epidemics, from obesity to heart disease, psychiatric disorders and cancer.

Other themes may be added arising from suggestions from workshops participants.

The Venice workshop offers a key opportunity to be part of the planning process and to help shape a significant new aid to workers and researchers in a growing field.

Palazzo Pesaro Papafava is a few minute’s walk from the Rialto Bridge and Ca’ d’Oro.

It is located on the Canale della Misericordia, opposite the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, with views towards the Grand Canal and the Lagoon.

Poet and doctor Dannie Abse awarded Honorary Fellowship by Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine

Dannie Abse has been made an Honorary Fellow by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, announced at the FPM's 3rd Annual Summer Event on 24th June, 2013.

FPM President Donald Singer with new Hon. FPM Fellow Dannie Abse

His book of poetry, Running Late received the Roland Mathais Prize in 2007. The Presence was the winner of the prestigious Wales Book of the Year award for 2008. In 2009 Abse brought out a volume of collected poetry. In the same year, he received the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award. Abse was a judge for the inaugural 2010 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

He was awarded a CBE in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to poetry and literature. 
See more 

Dannie Abse at the FPM for the 2010 Hippocrates Prize judging

Key dates for Hippocrates Initiative events: Venice, London and W Midlands

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Below are key dates for forthcoming Hippocrates Initiative events

See  links below or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com for further information.

West Midlands

Saturday 15^th June – 10-11am at the University of Warwick Arts Centre, CV4 7AL

HippocratesPoetry and Medicine Readings at the University of Warwick Book Festival

Readings by Wendy French, Jane Kirwan and Michael Henry

Ticket £5.50

London

Monday 24^th June – 6pm – 8.30pm

Rooms of the Medical Society of London
11, Chandos Street, London W1G 9DR - 5 minutes walk from Oxford Circus

3rd  FPM Summer Evening Event: the 2013 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Reading by Dannie Abse

Dannie Abse at 2010 Hippocrates Judging ©Hippocrates Prize

Readings by winning and commended poets from the 2013 Hippocrates prize

Readings from Born in the NHS by Wendy French

Ticket £10 including coffee on arrival and closing wine reception

Venice

Weekend of Saturday 21^st – Sunday 22^nd September

Hippocrates Initiative for Symposium on Poetry and Medicine

Venue: 15^th Century Palazzo Ca' Pesaro Papafava

hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

Dannie Abse to read at Hippocrates Prize FPM Annual Summer event

The  Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine has been a major supporter of the Hippocrates Prize since it was founded. The FPM's 3rd Annual Summer Evening on Monday 24th June will be devoted to the 2013 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. Highlights include a reading by poet and doctor Dannie Abse, member of the judging panel for the inaugural 2010 Hippocrates Prize.

Dannie Abse at 2010 Hippocrates Judging ©Hippocrates Prize

Venue
Rooms of the Medical Society of London
11, Chandos Street, London W1G 9DR - 5 minutes walk from Oxford Circus

The annual Hippocrates awards are in an Open category (1st Prize £5000), which anyone in the world may enter, and an NHS category (1st Prize £5000) which is open to UK National Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations involved in education and training of NHS students and staff; and a Young Poets Award of £500.

The Hippocrates Initiative began in 2009 as the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine for an unpublished poem on a medical subject. The Hippocrates Initiative now also includes annual international symposia at which the Hippocrates awards are presented, an international research forum for poetry and medicine and The Hippocrates Press. Since its launch in 2009, the annual Hippocrates Prize has attracted thousands of entries from 55 countries, from the Americas to Fiji and from Finland to Australasia. With a purse of £15,000, the Hippocrates Prize is one of the most valuable poetry prizes in the world.

Registration costs £10, including coffee and a wine reception after the readings.

See link to register and for programme

Young poet to receive new Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

The winner of the inaugural Hippocrates Young Poets Prize of £500 is Rosalind Jana from

Winner Rosalind Jana

Hereford Sixth Form College in England, for her poem ‘Posterior Instrumented Fusion for Adolescent Scoliosis’.

The international Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme. Entrants were young poets from anywhere in the world aged 14 to 18 years. The 2013 Prize attracted entries from the UK, USA and Australia.

The winning entry was decided by judge and award-winning poet Clare Pollard, who published her first collection of poetry at the age of 19. 

Rosalind Jana is a sixth form student and part-time freelance journalist. She won the Vogue Talent Contest for young writers in 2011 at age sixteen and has subsequently written for Vogue several times. She regularly contributes to Lionheart Magazine, Oxfam and fashion initiative All Walks Beyond the Catwalk. She has a conditional offer to read English Literature at Oxford. 

About the Hippocrates Young Poets Prize she said: “I'm very pleased to be judging the first Hippocrates Prize for Schools - in bringing science and art together, I hope it will deepen students’ understanding of both, and uncover poets of the future.” She added that the top entries were “extraordinarily accomplished for writers of 18 or under”. 

Of Rosalind Jana’s winning poem she commented: “It is hard to believe that a poem with

Judge Clare Pollard

such an ugly name can be so beautiful, but it is an incredible display of control and craft, formally brilliant and full of striking visual imagery - the shuttered murk, the meaty spine, the cloak of skin, the ‘morphine black blown out by light’.  It is both passionate and eerily detached - a deeply impressive piece of work.”

Hippocrates Prize founders clinical professor Donald Singer and poet Michael Hulse said: “We are delighted that the Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is already having an international impact in inspiring a new generation of poets.”

The Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is supported by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, the National Association of Writers in Education, and the Cardiovascular Research Trust.

The Hippocrates Initiative – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for

Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the synergy between medicine, the arts, and health.

To attend the Young Poets, NHS and Open Hippocrates Prize award ceremony in London on 18^th May at the Wellcome Collection and the related Symposium on Poetry and Medicine see http://hippocrates-poetry.org

Notes for editors
For more information about Hippocrates Prize winners and extracts of their winning poems, contact hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

About the winner
Rosalind Jana is a sixth form student and part-time freelance journalist. She won the Vogue Talent Contest for young writers in 2011 at age sixteen and has subsequently written for Vogue several times. She regularly contributes to Lionheart Magazine, Oxfam and fashion initiative All Walks Beyond the Catwalk. She has a conditional offer to read English Literature at Oxford. Further information can be found at clothescamerasandcoffee.blogspot.com

About her winning poem Rosalind said: 'At the age of fifteen I underwent an operation to fix my extraordinarily twisted spine. I had been diagnosed with scoliosis six months previously when my degree of curvature stood at 56 degrees. By the time I was offered surgery this had progressed to nearly 80 degrees. My backbone had compressed into the shape of a lopsided 'S', my right shoulder blade sticking out like a small wing and rib-cage barrelled to the left. I wheezed when I walked. Sharp aches and jabs of pain were expected. The surgical solution was to cut into my back, place titanium rods on either side of the vertebrae and screw them in place. This would manually straighten my spine and it would fuse solid over the next few months."

"Recovery was physically, emotionally and psychologically challenging. All that remains now is my scar. I am fascinated with its visual resonance, the way in which those complicated months full of agony and debilitation could have been reduced to a single, fading line of flesh. The poem was an attempt to express the strange disconnect between the skin I can see, and the muscle and bone lying beneath that my surgeon and his assistants worked with for five hours. I wanted to show how extraordinary a process it is and how intricate, messy and beautiful the body can be."

About judge Clare Pollard
Clare Pollard has published four collections of poetry, the most recent of which, Changeling (Bloodaxe, 2011), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She published her first collection, The Heavy-Petting Zoo, with Bloodaxe in 1998 aged 19. Her play The Weather premiered at the Royal Court Theatre and her documentary for radio, ‘My Male Muse’, was a Radio 4 Pick of the year.  She co-edited the anthology Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century and her new collection, Ovid’s Heroines, will be published by Bloodaxe this year.

More about the Hippocrates Initiative
The Hippocrates initiative was established in 2009 and already offers two successful annual poetry prizes, one open to submissions from anyone anywhere in the world, the other restricted to NHS employees (present and past) and UK health students. In each category a first prize of £5,000 is awarded. The Hippocrates Prize has attracted thousands of entries from 55 countries, from the Americas to Fiji, from Finland to Australasia, and prizewinners have come from New Zealand and the US as well as the UK.