A POET who spent two years following in Wordsworth's footsteps at Grasmere has scooped one of the country's top literary prizes.

Paul Farley, 37, was this week announced as the winner of the Whitbread Poetry Award, picking up £5,000 for his efforts. Previous winners of the award include Seamus Heaney's highly acclaimed translation of Beowulf.

Mr Farley now goes on to compete against the winners of four other categories for the prestigious £25,000 Whitbread Book of the Year prize.

"It still hasn't sunk in," said the poet this week. "I'm delighted. If it means some people buy the book and it makes people pay a little more attention to poetry in general that's all to the good."

Originally from Liverpool, Mr Farley has just ended a two-year stint as poet in residence at The Wordsworth Trust's Dove Cottage in Grasmere, living in a small cottage of his own, just yards from the great man's famous home.

Describing the period as a "great two years", he said looking back at that time he now realises it had a "massive effect" on his work.

"I did try to work in Wordsworthian themes, to say what's it like to be a poet from the city living in the countryside at the beginning of the 21st Century and writing nature poetry what does that mean now."

Mr Farley, who lives in Lancaster, and has just started a job teaching creative writing at Lancaster University, won the award for what was only his second collection of poetry, The Ice Age.

The Whitbread Book of the Year will be announced on January 28, although Mr Farley does not expect to win.

"I'm going to go to the award ceremony but I really can't see this going any further. I'm up against some fantastic books and I would be very, very surprised if this went further but I'm happy enough."

The judges, who included poet Wendy Cope, said of Mr Farley's work: "Of all the collections that we discussed, these were the poems we kept returning to, with admiration and enjoyment."

January 10, 2003 14:00