Maggie Sawkins has won this year’s £5,000 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for Zones of Avoidance, a multimedia live literature production written and performed by Sawkins and directed by Mark C Hewitt. The narrator is on a quest to discover the lure of psychoactive substances following her daughter’s descent into addiction. Zones of Avoidance was first performed as part of Portsmouth Bookfest in October 2013.

Judge Denise Riley said described it as "a challenging, painfully open account of a daughter's addiction, yet it's an account which also offers graceful good humour. Beautifully written and uncompromising, it's a modern story that we felt the writer was compelled to tell; it acts as a vivid witness of harsh experiences which aren't often described in poetry, and Maggie Sawkins's illuminating descriptions will prove helpful for others to hear."

Sawkins’s two poetry collections are Charcot’s Pet (Flarestack, 2003) and The Zig Zag Woman (Two Ravens Press, 2007). She works with people in recovery from addiction, and teaches students with specific learning difficulties at South Downs College, near Portsmouth. In 2003 she founded Tongues & Grooves poetry and music club, and last year represented Portsmouth on the TS Eliot prize 20th anniversary tour.

The four other shortlisted poets were Steve Ely, Chris McCabe, Hannah Silva, and Zoë Skoulding. More details