The Welsh poet Tony Curtis received the one thousand guineas Dylan Thomas Prize, presented by Aeronwy Thomas, the poet's daughter, at a ceremony at the University of Leicester. He also 'won the title of the United Kingdom Bard of the Year in a competition involving the U.K.'s top poets', according to a press release from Poetry Digest. Alan Forrest, editor of the magazine, announced the establishment of a new venture, Young Poets, devoted to writers under 19, and to be divided in three parts: the under 9's, the 10-14's, and the 15-18's. 'We want to encourage creativity among young people', he declared. Poetry Digest is at 28 Stainsdale Green, Whitwick, Leicestershire LE6 3PW.

The Saltire Society's Scottish Book of the Year and Best First Book Awards (1992) were given with minimum advertisement and maximum seriousness: less money but more Scottish cachet than the McVitie's Prize earlier in the season. Poets were strongly represented on the two short lists and indeed swept the board: the Book of the Year was lain Crichton Smith's Collected Poems (Carcanet); the Best First Book Award was divided between Jackie Kay for The Adoption Papers (Bloodaxe) and Crisdean (Christopher) Whyte for his bilingual collection Uirsgeal (Gairm).

Charles Tomlinson has received the Joseph Bennett Award, given by the Hudson Review. The citation acknowledges 'his distinguished achievement in poetry. With elegant precision he has consistently discovered and honoured the surprising, formal sweetness of our shared speech.'

Roland John writes:

A.L. Hendriks died in May 1992 aged 69. He was born in Jamaica of French and West Indian parents. He was involved in broadcasting in the Caribbean and was a past President of the Jamaican Centre of International P.E.N., Chairman of the Arts Council of Jamaica, and a regular contributor to The Gleaner. He translated from French and German and made versions of Baudelaire in Jamaican English. His first book of poems, On This Mountain, was published by Deutsch in 1964. Seven further collections followed. With Cedric Lindo he edited The Independence Anthology of Jamaican Literature . A major selection of his work,To Speak Simply: Selected Poems 1961-1986, was published by Hippopotamus Press, 22 Whitewell Road, Frome, Somerset BA11 4EL.

F.T. Prince writes:
Has our literary world yet become aware of the amazing phenomenon of Shakespeare in China? Dr Xiao Yang Zhang of the Beijing Language Institute has been awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Southampton for a thesis on the reception of Shakespeare in China in the twentieth century. China's turbulent experiences over the past 70 years have not prevented the growth of Shakespeare's fame; but the outcome is becoming apparent only in the 'New Period' (1978-88), with the passing of the Cultural Revolution. The foundation of a Shakespeare Association in China in 1984 and its inaugural Shakespeare festival in 1986 have contributed to the general agreement that Shakespeare's work is the supreme achievement of world literature.

China's long effort to modernize itself began in the early 1900s, the object being to assimilate western technology and political and social ideals while retaining the essentials of a 2000-year-old Chinese culture. Western literature from Homer to Ibsen and Chekhov was given canonical status, but in the event Shakespeare has outdistanced all competitors. The mixed techniques of Chinese classical drama (verse, prose, song, dance, mime, elaborate costume) have been readily adapted in Shakespeare productions, but his influence has subverted the narrow traditional view of what materials and messages are acceptable in drama.

Translations of the complete plays and poems and of Lamb's Tales have sold in their millions, providing a new repertory of stories and new conceptions of character and moral value. Shakespeare has entered the consciousness of all educated people, and his 'golden sayings' are used in all kinds of writing and discourse, just as quotations from Confucius and classical poets (and for a time Mao Tse-tung) were used in the past. A 1989 article in the People's Daily, criticising China's new businessmen as 'yuppies', ended with a quote from Julius Caesar: 'He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,/ To groan and sweat under the business.' Dr Zhang says that Shakespeare appeals particularly to young people who have become 'anti-tradition' because of 'the serious social problems in China and disappointment at Marxism-Maoism'.

The Chinese see Shakespeare as a poet 'not for an age but for all time'. Their enthusiasm owes nothing to our own current Cultural Revolution in the theatre and elsewhere. Critics have shown little interest in post-structuralist or deconstructionist approaches.

Ailsa Cox and Elizabeth Baines are establishing a new magazine for prose fiction based in Manchester but with a wide remit. 'We want innovative fiction of a high literary standard for a magazine with an urban and contemporary flavour and wide appeal. One of our main aims will be to bring good fiction to new audiences.' Work should be sent to the editors at Flat 4, 12 Carlton Road, Manchester M16 8BB.

The KQBX Press ('Committed to Poetry') announced new collections by Sarah Hopkins and Philip Whitfield, David Orme and Sean Street, and is hosting events at the Bournemouth and Christchurch Festivals. A new brochure is available from The KQBX Press, 16 Scotter Road, Bournemouth BH7 6LY.

Poet, translator and editor John Adlard died in London in January. He was 63. His poetry never achieved the attention it merited, following an independent route of political incorrectness which was always inspiriting, and touching with great delicacy and empathy on hard themes. The Lichfield Elegies (1991) in particular stand out among his mature work. He was most widely known, perhaps, for his anthology work, his classic selection of Rochester (The Debt to Pleasure) and his collection of Restoration Bawdy, The Fruit of That Forbidden Tree, published in the Fyfield Series. He was a man whose creative and critical vocations were inseparable, and he was an astute critic and literary sleuth as well as a poet.

The poet and scholar of Medieval and Modern Greek, Constantine (C.A.) Trypanis died in January at the age of 84. His early life as a soldier and scholar is full of patriotic adventure: he was a survivor with remarkable clarity of purpose, a clarity which comes through in his poetry, much of which he wrote - after 1950 - in English, though in recent years he has been neglected by critics and readers. In a handsome tribute to him in the Independent, Peter Levi writes: 'His deepest inspirations were the sea, and Homer, and the war.' Two of his last books were collections of poems in Greek.

Nikos Gavril Pendzikis, the Greek writer, died in his native Thessalonika in January. He was 85. His main reputation rests on his prose work, but he was also a poet (like his sister Zoe Karelli) deeply attuned to the Greek Orthodox religion, whose hymns, patristics, history and iconographical values at once inspired and fruitfully constrained his poems.

The Japanese poet and writer Kobo Abe died in January. He was 69. His first collection of poetry he published. at his own expense when he was 23. He went on to write for the theatre and in other genres, notably fiction, and received numerous awards. His emphatic, evolving political views were always controversial, and he brought to bear on the Japanese tradition - largely through his prose writings - many of the innovative authors from Europe and America, including Kafka, Buzzati and Borges. James Kirkup noted in the Independent: 'He remains a unique writer, a voice on his own, inimitable and alien, a fantastic realist of loneliness, deviancy and disintegration, no longer popular in a pragmatic Japan dedicated only to material advancement.'

Awano Seiho, 94 years of age, died in Nishinomiya, Japan, in December 1992. He was the doyen of the haiku poets.