He has received numerous awards for his poetry, including "The Sunday Times" Author of the Year, a Forward Prize, a Lannan Award, and an Ivor Novello Award for his song lyrics in the Channel 4 film "Feltham Sings". "Kid" and "CloudCuckooLand" were short-listed for the Whitbread poetry prize. The "Dead Sea Poems" was short-listed for the Whitbread, the Forward Poetry Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize. "The Universal Home Doctor" was also short-listed for the T.S. Eliot. In 2000, he was the UK's official Millennium Poet and went on to judge the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize, the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2010 Manchester Poetry Prize.