British Poet David Constantine Awarded Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry

In 1933, King George V and his Poet Laureate, John Masefield, began to recognize excellence in poetry with the offering of a Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, the 2020 recipient of which is David Constantine, author of 11 books of poetry. Current Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, who chaired the deciding committee, calls Constantine "a 'humane' poet—a word often used in connection with his work, as if in noticing and detailing the ways of the world he is doing so on behalf of all that is best in us." He continues:

…For over 40 years he has shaped a body of work that stands in comparison with that of any of his contemporaries, not just at home but internationally, navigating and negotiating that space between everyday events and their metaphysical or spiritual 'otherness'."

Constantine has also published five translations with Bloodaxe, two of which have won European translation awards, including his Selected Poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin (2018). Other poets he has translated include Philippe Jaccottet, Henri Michaux and Hans Magnus Enzensberger (all from Bloodaxe), along with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Penguin) and Bertolt Brecht (Norton).

Constantine has published six collections of short stories with Comma Press, and he won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award in 2013 for his collection Tea at the Midland—making him the first English writer to win the international fiction award. His story "In Another Country" was adapted into "45 Years", a major film starring Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling.

Find out more info at The Bookseller.