Valerie Darville and Anthony Fisher bestowed the Ted Slade Award for Service to Poetry 2022

The Poetry Kit is pleased to announce

THE TED SLADE AWARD FOR SERVICE TO POETRY 2022     IS AWARDED TO

Valerie Darville and Anthony Fisher of Enfield Poets

The joint recipients of the Ted Slade Award for 2022, Valerie Darville and Anthony Fisher, are well known in the Enfield area of London and beyond.  Their many projects and efforts to raise the profile of poetry and to create platforms for poets to present their work is outstanding.  For over 20 years they have promoted events and projects, readings and open floor nights.  Together they took every opportunity to bring poetry to the attention of a wider audience.  In the times of the Covid Pandemic their successful and long lived open floor event continued online.  For all that they have done and continue to do we are pleased to award them jointly the Ted Slade Award for Service to Poetry 2022.

Valerie Darville said “We are surprised and delighted to receive the Ted Slade Award.  There was a third founder twenty years ago – Jane Elder who did a great deal for creative writing in Enfield – who died a few years later so it is sad she cannot share it with us.  We have all had a very difficult two years with Covid and we are glad we have been able to keep the group active on zoom.”

Jim Bennett and The Poetry Kit send their congratulations to both recipients and thanks for all that they continue to do for poetry.

Ted Slade was the founding editor of The Poetry Kit. It was his vision and determination that saw the site grow to become one of the most visited poetry related sites in the world. This was done with the ethos of providing a service for their readers and always putting their needs first when developing the site. 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. Ted died suddenly in 2004 and The Poetry Kit introduced an award in his name which is given to a person, or persons, who have given their time and energies over an extended period to ensuring the continuance and development of poetry. This will include people who have kept poetry as a presence in an area or community. Those who have pursued a poetic vision through a magazine or regular reading events. Those who have developed other media to explore its poetic use or have published poets who could not have otherwise found an outlet for their work.

Jim Bennett is the Managing Editor of The Poetry Kit. They gave the first TED SLADE AWARD in 2005 and since then the following people have received it;

2005 – Sally Evans (Poetry Scotland)
2006 – Gerald England (New Hope International)
2007 – Michael Horovitz (Poetry Olympics)
2008 – Connie Pickard (Morden Tower)
2009 – Geoff Stevens (Purple Patch)
2010 – Andy Croft (Smokestack Books)
2011 – Peter Finch (Peter Finch Archive)
2012 – Brian Wake (Brian Wake’s Publisher)
2013 – Johnathon Clifford (Johnathon Clifford’s Website)
2014 – Patricia Oxley (Acumen)
2015 – Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling (Indigo Dreams)
2016 – Peter Thabit Jones Petert Thabit Jones Website
2017 – Rick Lupert Poetry Super Highway
2018 – Copland Smith and Dave Tarrant Manky Poets
2019 – Waiata Dawn Davies
2022 – Anthony Fisher and Valerie Darville Enfield Poets