Newcomer Wins [Pounds]15,000 Poetry Prize after Tragic Death of Rival

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A NEWCOMER has beaten favourites Glyn Maxwell and Mick Imlah to take one of the most prestigious prizes in poetry.

But the victory of 30-year-old Jen Hadfield from Shetland was tinged with sadness after her rival Imlah died only hours before the TS Eliot Prize ceremony in London last night.

Hadfield, who won the [pounds]15,000 prize with her second collection Nigh-No-Place, said: "It buys me quite a lot of [writing] time." But she said she was sad to win in such circumstances.

Scottish Imlah, 52, a poetry editor at the Times Literary Supplement, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease just over a year ago and published his own second collection, The Lost …