Judges for 2014 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Members of the judging panel for the 2014 Hippocrates Prize are poet Philip Gross, a winner of the TS Eliot Prize, distinguished barrister Robert Francis QC, and Mumsnet Editor Sarah Crown, and for the Young Poets category Kit Wright.

The Hippocrates Prize is for an unpublished poem in English of up to 50 lines text, excluding title and line spacing.

With a 1st prize of £5,000 both for the winning poem in the Open International category and for the NHS category, the Hippocrates Prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem. There is also an international category for Young Poets aged from 14 to under 19 years. This £500 award was launched in 2012, and is for an unpublished poem of up to 50 lines in English on a medical theme.

In its first 4 years, the Hippocrates Prize has attracted around 5000 entries from 55 countries, from the Americas to Fiji and Finland to Australasia.

Entries are now open for the 2014 Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine, deadline 31st January 2014. There is no limit to the numbers of entries by any poet.

Awards will be presented at the 5th International Symposium for Poetry and Medicine, to be held on Saturday 10th May, 2014 in London.

Philip 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, is due from 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, where he leads the Masters in Writing programme. [Photo by Stephen Morris]

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 Mumsnet. She was editor of Guardian Books from 2007-2013. Previous poetry awards for which she has been a member of the judging panels include the Forward prizes and the Picador poetry prize.

The 2014 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine will be judged by poet Kit Wright, one of the most acclaimed poets for adults and children. 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.

The Hippocrates poetry and medicine initiative received  the Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts in the 2011 Times Higher Education awards.

Winners of the 2013 Hippocrates Prize:

Harvard poet and physician Rafael Campo wins Hippocrates Open International Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Psychotherapist Mary V Williams wins Hippocrates NHS Prize for Poetry and Medicine
English poet 

Rosalind Jana awarded international Hippocrates Young Poets Prize for Poetry and Medicine

For email enquiries about the Hippocrates Prize:  hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com

Hippocrates website: http://hippocrates-poetry.org