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The King has approved the award of His Majesty’s Gold Medal for Poetry for the year 2024 to George Szirtes. 

The Gold Medal for Poetry was established by King George V in 1933 and is awarded for excellence in poetry. Each year the recipient is from the United Kingdom or a Commonwealth Realm. 

The Poetry Medal Committee recommended George Szirtes as the recipient of the Medal for 2024 due to his deeply personal pieces of work, informed by his dual perspective, looking both east and west. 

Born in Budapest in 1948, George and his family moved to England as a refugee following the Hungarian Uprising in 1956. George is now considered a major figure across the United Kingdom and beyond – he has published articles, reviews, obituaries and biographies, including The Photographer at Sixteen (2019), a memoir of his mother which won the James Tait Black Prize for biography. 

George has established an international reputation, having published thirteen full-length collections of poetry. The themes of his work are topical, contemporary and respond to current affairs across the world, for example, his sequence ‘In the streets of a small town’ included in his book Fresh Out of the Sky, captures the experience of the pandemic.

On receiving the award, George Szirtes yesterday said: 

“I could not believe it when Simon Armitage shared the news. When our family came here as refugees in 1956 only my father spoke some English, although English was chronologically my second language it quickly become first in daily life. I had no notion of being a poet until one day in a school corridor, a friend showed me a poem and suddenly a door opened where there hadn’t been a door at all. 

I had no expectations, no background or formal teaching, so being the recipient of the King’s Gold Medal for Poetry tops everything. I am deeply grateful to those who have chosen to award me in this way, it is wonderful to join my name with all those excellent poets honoured in the past and to become, in time, part of that past myself.” 

The Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage yesterday said: 

“George Szirtes is a deserving recipient of the King’s Gold Medal for Poetry. For decades his crafted, observational poems have turned the spotlight on society and its values - how countries and regimes treat their people, how people operate under fluctuating political ideologies. His work and his perspectives are as relevant now as they were when he first put pen to paper, and possibly more so.” 

Background 

George Szirtes 

George Szirtes was born in Budapest in 1948 and came to England with his family as a refugee following the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. He went to school in London where he specialised in sciences and started writing poetry. 

George studied fine art in Leeds and London from 1968-1973. In 1970 he married fellow artist Clarissa Upchurch and together they had two children in the mid to late seventies. He taught art and art history in schools through the eighties before moving to higher education in 1992 teaching creative writing, retiring from the University of East Anglia in Norwich in 2013. 

His first book of poems, The Slant Door (1979) was joint winner of the Faber Prize. He has published many since then, including three books for children, one of which won the CLPE Prize for poetry. 

He has won various other prizes through his career in both Britain and Hungary, his collection Reel winning the T S Eliot Prize in 2004 for which he has been twice shortlisted since. Mapping the Delta (Bloodaxe 2016) was a Poetry Book Society Choice. His most recent publication is Fresh Out of the Sky (2021). 

George holds three honorary degrees, the last from UEA. Together with Clarissa he founded, ran and published portfolios and pamphlets of etchings and poems by other artists and poets under the imprint of The Starwheel Press. 

History of The King’s Gold Medal for Poetry 

The Gold Medal for Poetry was instituted by King George V in 1933 at the suggestion of the then Poet Laureate, John Masefield. The Medal is awarded for excellence in poetry, on the basis either of a body of work over several years, or for an outstanding poetry collection issued during the year of the award. The poet is from the United Kingdom or a Commonwealth Realm, and their poems will have been published. 

During Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the medal was known as The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.