Geoff Stevens awarded Ted Slade Award 2009

The late Ted Slade (1937-2004) was the founder of Poetry Kit (see PiR's LINKS), today one of the most popular poetry websites in the world. When Ted Slade died in 2004 the Poetry Kit site was taken over by the Liverpool poet Jim Bennett who continued to follow the original ethos of providing a service to readers by taking into consideration their many and various needs. Bennett, on the Ted Slade Memorial Page at Poetry Kit writes: For all his work Ted received no official thanks and no payment, he did it because it was necessary and if he had not done it some others with less integrity might have.
The Ted Slade Award was first presented in 2005. As Poet-in-Residence sees it, the Ted Slade Award honours those who give their time and energy, not for financial gain, but freely, so that the bardic roots of poetry are encouraged to grow, to survive, to spread and to continue to produce the new growth, and of course the poetic flowers. It is then, an award for those who toil on the poetry allotments as opposed to those ensconced in the golden towers; for they have their own awards in abundance.
The previous winners of the Ted Slade Award are:
2005 - Sally Evans
2006 - Gerald England
2007 - Michael Horovitz
2008 - Connie Pickard

Poet-in-Residence is delighted to learn that the 2009 winner of the Ted Slade Award is Geoff Stevens, editor of Purple Patch and the organizer of many poetry mics and other events in the libraries, shopping malls and public spaces of the UK. A poem from Geoff Stevens, himself a prolific poet whose books, Keelhauling through Ireland, Absinthe on your Ice Cream etc., may be found at the Poetry Monthly Press website is currently featured on Charles Christian's Ink, Sweat & Tears website (see PiR's LINKS).