Second poet quits TS Eliot awards

A second poet has withdrawn from the TS Eliot Prize shortlist over its sponsorship by a hedge fund firm.

John Kinsella, whose collection, Armour, was in the running for the £15,000 poetry award, joined Alice Oswald in condemning the Poetry Book Society's acceptance of three-year funding from Aurum. "The business of Aurum doesn't sit with my personal politics and ethics," he said. Such firms were "at the very pointy end of capitalism".

But the PBS's Desmond Clarke said there was a history of financial institutions sponsoring literary prizes and added: "Aurum are respected investment managers."