The Forward Prize for Poetry has been awarded to Sean O’Brien for his work The Drowned Book.

It marks the first time the £10,000 prize has been won three times by one person, with O’Brien also named winner in 1995 and 2001.

Chair of the judging panel, writer Michael Symmons Roberts, said the collection was the poet’s strongest work to date.

He added that The Drowned Book is “a fully realised, highly accomplished collection, it is a sustained elegy for lost friends, landscapes and a decaying culture”.

O’Brien is a professor of creative writing at Newcastle University.

The judges also recognised Daljit Nagra’s first collection Look We Have Coming to Dover! - a witty look at the lives of British born Indians.

Alice Oswald meanwhile won the best single poem award for Dunt.