2015 Hippocrates Young Poet Award for poetry and medicine to be announced in London on Friday 22nd May

The winner of the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poet Prize for poetry and Medicine will be announced at an Awards Ceremony in London on Friday 22nd May. The Young Poet Prize of £500 (~US $750) is one of the most valuable poetry awards in the world for young poets.

This year’s awards will be announced by poet and judge Simon Rae, former presenter of the BBC's Poetry Please..

Four poets have been shortlisted for the £500 2015 Hippocrates Young Poet Prize: Daniella

Cugini from Warwick in England for the surgeon dissects his lover, and US poets Alex Greenberg from New York City for Dusting, Alexandra Spensley from Avon Lake, Ohio for Geography of a bone and Parisa Thepmankorn from Rockaway, New Jersey for Intra-ocular Pressure. 

A further 5 poets from the UK, the USA and Canada were commended. Other themes of the shortlisted and commended entries ranged from a child with Ebola to Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical studies.

This International Hippocrates Prize for Young Poets is for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme by poets aged 14 to 18 years.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 Australia, Canada, Nepal, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the UK, Ukraine and the USA.

Register for the Awards Ceremony from 3.30 pm - 6.15 pm on Friday 22nd May, at the Medical Society of London,11 Chandos Street, London W1G 9EB.

See more about the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poet Award for Poetry and Medicine. 

Watch judge Simon Rae discussing the shortlist for the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poet Prize.

The winner in 2013 of the inaugural Hippocrates Young Poets Prize was Rosalind Jana from Hereford Sixth Form College in England, for her poem Posterior Instrumented Fusion for Adolescent Scoliosis.

The winner in the 2014 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize was Conor McKee from Sidney Sussex College Cambridge for his poem I Will Not Cut for Stone.

Notes for editors

For photos of finalists, biographies and extracts of their poems, call 07447 441666 or email 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 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 Pocket Prescriber, the 8th edition of which will published by Taylor & Francis in the Summer of 2015.

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.

2015 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 Cardiovascular Research Trust, a charity founded in 1996, which promotes research and education for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation.