Out of Hospital Arrest and other Hippocrates NHS shortlisted poems

Listen to discussion about Out of Hospital Arrest and other Hippocrates NHS shortlisted poems: Hippocrates judge, Robert Francis QC in discussion with the BBC’s Martha Kearney on the World at One on Thursday 10^th April.

Shortlists and results for commended poets in the Open, NHS and Young Poet sections have just been released for the 2014 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.

With a 1st prize for the winning poem in the Open and in the NHS category of £5,000, and £500 for the Young Poet award, the Hippocrates prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem.

Links below are for shortlisted commended poets, their biographies, and what inspired their poems.

Open and NHS Shortlists

Young Poet Shortlist

In the Open Awards, the judges agreed 21 Commendations for poets from seven countries.

Open Commendations

In the NHS Awards, the judges agreed 20 Commendations.

NHS Commendations

Poets from New York and South Africa, a trainee child health doctor, and a dentist from Belfast are among finalists for this year’s Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. At £5000, in both Open and NHS categories, this is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem.

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

Short-listed poets in the Open Category are poet Jane Draycott, publisher and poet Ailsa Holland, both from England, and Karel Nel, a former pastor and scientist from South Africa.

And competing for the UK NHS 2014 Hippocrates £5000 first prize are dentist Paula Cunningham from Belfast, Valerie Laws from Whitley Bay, who has worked as a poet with pathologists and neuroscientists, and Ellen Storm, a trainee in paediatrics and child health in the Mersey region.

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.

The winners will be announced at an International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine in London on Saturday May 10th.

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!"

Shortlisted for the £500 2014 Hippocrates Young Poet Prize are UK poets Joseph Davison-Duddles, Molly Garbutt, and Conor McKee, and US poet, Talin Tahajian from Belmont, Massachusetts. The winning entry will be announced at an International Symposium for Poetry and Medicine in London on Saturday 10th May.

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.

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

Kit Wright 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.’

The 2014 Hippocrates Awards will be presented at the close of the 5th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine in London on Saturday 10th May.

Competing poets for the 2014 Hippocrates Awards came from 31 countries from 6 continents around the world. Entries have arrived from throughout the United Kingdom and the United States, and from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France , Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy , Kenya, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, Singapore, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Trinidad and Zimbabwe.

Press release about the Hippocrates Young Poet Award

http://hippocrates-poetry.org/news/press-releases-2/extraordinarily-assured-and.html

Press release about the Hippocrates International Open and NHS Awards

http://hippocrates-poetry.org/news/press-releases-2/the-personal-and-the-beauti.html