Colin Greenwood helps pick the Next Generation Poets

Colin Greenwood was one of the judges who chose the Poetry Book Society's 20 Next Generation Poets, published today in The Guardian and The Independent. He was the only musician on the panel.

NME said in April that Greenwood was asked on the strength of his English degree from Cambridge, where he wrote his thesis on Raymond Carver. Speaking from the tour in Japan, he told Australia's The Guide in an interview out on 30 April that he had brought homework with him, the poems he was marking for the competition.

There were seven judges. Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, took the chair, with the poets Simon Armitage and Bernardine Evaristo and the novelist A.L. Kennedy. Greenwood was one of three who don't write for a living, with James Naughtie of the Today programme, who voted by telephone, and Marie Robertson, a member of the Poetry Book Society.

The promotion follows New Generation Poets in 1994, which introduced 20 young poets to the public. This time the search was for the most exciting poets to emerge in the decade since. The best known of the 20 is Alice Oswald, whose Dart won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2002. Two of those chosen are in their twenties and have one collection each.

Armitage sat next to Greenwood, and writes about the judging in today's Guardian.

Colin, where are those bootlegs you were going to send me?

Simon Armitage⁴