Simon Armitage, the poet laureate will donate his £5,000 salary as poet laureate to help fund the annual Laurel Prize for poems on nature and environment.
He said he hopes it will promote thought, discussion and works about the impact of issues like climate change. The inaugural winner will receive £5,000 and will be announced next May. There will also be a second prize of £2,000 and a third prize of £1,000.
He hopes the award will promote wider thought and discussion, as well as poems, about the dangers posed to nature and humanity by environmental degradation.
“The new wave of nature writing in non-fiction has been well documented over recent years but not enough attention has been paid to a similar move in poetry, with climate crisis and environmental concerns clearly provoking this important strand of work,” Mr Armitage said.
“Over the course of my 10-year laureateship I want one of the headline projects to be a prize or award that recognises the resurgence of nature and environmental writing currently taking place in poetry,” he added.
