So… what could possibly top Chelsea’s dramatic Champions League victory? Well, award-winning poet David Harsent bringing home the 2012 Griffin Poetry prize seems to have done the job with room to spare!
Toronto was the venue and an incredibly proud Simon was by his father’s side as Harsent Sr, whose latest collection, Night, is published by Faber and Faber, was honoured along with Canadian poet Ken Babstock and Seamus Heaney.
Seamus Heaney celebrates with David Harsent
The award, which brings with it recognition for the poet who, like his son describes his art as “a way of life”, has made us all very, very proud indeed and left him ever so slightly lost for words.
“You’re not going to get a speech because I don’t have a speech,” he said.
“But perhaps I should say that, given that poetry is probably extremely high on the list of the world’s unnecessary events, an event like the Griffin prize — the support and what it brings to poetry — is, to give you a quote: ‘A good deed in a naughty world.’”
