This year’s recipient of the Ted Slade Award is Johnathon Clifford. 

Jim Bennett of Poetry Kit said " Johnathon has been at the forefront of exposing "vanity publishers" who have been out to scam poets.  Over years there have been publishers who have tried to get money from poets promising them that their poetry would be published and giving them unrealistic expectations regarding the value of their poetry or its market potential.  Johnathon has exposed many of the bad practices that were prevalent and offered advice and help to many poets over a long period of time.

In addition Johnathon also set up the National Poetry Foundation as a registered charity in 1981.  Over 21 years the Foundation published 179 books, gave grants to various poetry magazines and organised, administered and judged national and international poetry competitions.  The Foundation was closed in 2002. 

We are pleased that he is now a recipient of the Ted Slade Award as Ted was always keen to highlight bad publishing practices and Poetry Kit still carries advice from Johnathon intended for poets seeking publication."

Johnathon said; “Whatever do I say? Only that I am delighted and honoured to say 'Yes' to having my work over the years recognised by such a prestigious award.” Johnathon Clifford

Ted Slade was the founding editor of The Poetry Kit in every respect it was his vision and determination that saw the site grow to become one of the most visited poetry related sites in the world. This was done with the ethos of providing a service for our readers and always putting their needs first when developing the site. For all his work Ted received no official thanks and no payment, he did it because it was necessary and if he had not done it some others with less integrity might have.

Ted died suddenly (Memorial Page) and we always felt that we wanted to find a way to honour his memory and so we introduced an award in his name which is given to a person who has given their time and energies over an extended period to ensuring the continuance and development of poetry,. This will include people who have kept poetry as a presence in an area or community. Those who have pursued a poetic vision through a magazine or regular reading events. Those who have developed other media to explore its poetic use or have published poets who could not have otherwise found an outlet for their work.

In 2005 we gave the first TED SLADE AWARD and since then the following people have received it;