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The four Forward Prizes shortlists this year open up new territories for the form, highlighting poetic conversations with society, history, culture and the past that challenge and inform our present. Renowned for championing new poetic voices and internationally celebrated writers alike, the shortlists announced today represent the diverse excellence of contemporary poetry, and all its boundary-pushing innovations.
This year, we welcome a new category to the Prizes: Best Single Poem – Performed.
The Forward Prizes for Poetry are the most widely coveted awards for new poetry published in the UK and Ireland. The annual ceremony brings poetry’s biggest names to perform alongside rising talent before diverse and enthusiastic audiences. The prizes, run by the Forward Arts Foundation since 1992, are sponsored by Bookmark Content. Over the last three decades, the Prizes have recognised many of contemporary literature’s most celebrated names: Simon Armitage, Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy, Claudia Rankine and Caleb Femi.
Bernardine Evaristo, Chair for the Best Collections panel, was joined by judges Kate Fox, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Andrés N. Ordórica and Jessica Traynor.
Joelle Taylor, Chair for Best Single Poems panel, was joined by Khadijah Ibrahiim, Caroline Bird, Chris Redmond and Sue Roberts.
Best Collection: Jason Allen-Paisant, Self Portrait as Othello (Carcanet)
Best First Collection: Momtaza Mehri, Bad Diaspora Poems (Jonathan Cape)
Best Single Poem – Written: Malika Booker, ‘Libation’ (The Poetry Review)
Best Single Poem – Performed: Bohdan Piasecki, ‘Almost Certainly’
Jason Allen-Paisant
Self Portrait as Othello (Carcanet)
Jamaican writer and academic Jason Allen-Paisant collected the prize for Best Collection in Leeds, the city where he lives, for his seminal Self-Portrait as Othello (Carcanet).
‘An exhilarating and propulsive read that sweeps through several European cities that become subject to the black male gaze, changing what is seen and who is heard. Playful, intimate and allusive, these poems interrogate masculinity and history, experiment with the myth of Othello, mourn absent fathers, and offer us a refreshing mash-up of languages that regenerate poetry so that it feels freshly minted.’
Chair of Judges for the Best Collections panel, Bernardine Evaristo
Momtaza Mehri
Bad Diaspora Poems (Jonathan Cape)
Former Young People’s Laureate of London Momtaza Mehri was awarded the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection for her critically acclaimed Bad Diaspora Poems (Jonathan Cape)
‘An exceptional debut collection that reinvigorates ideas around diaspora, migration and home. Wide-ranging and ambitious, her poetry shimmers with erudition and linguistic exquisiteness, while also having an emotional heart. Drawing on global cultures, Mehri is a truly transnational poet of the twenty-first century whose words pulsate out into the world-at-large.’
Chair of Judges for the Best Collections panel, Bernardine Evaristo
Malika Booker
‘Libation’ (The Poetry Review)
Malika Booker, also based in Leeds, has became the first woman to win the Best Single Poem – Written category twice, first in 2020, and this year for ‘Libation’, originally published in The Poetry Review.
‘Malika’s piece reads like a drink. A slow pour of linguistic libation that funnels the reader down into the depths of ritual, grief, culture and society. It works hard to tread so lightly and holds all of this with tenderness and love.’
2023 judge Chris Redmond
Bohdan Piasecki
‘Almost Certainly’
Polish-born, Birmingham-based performer and professor Bohdan Piasecki became the inaugural winner of the widely celebrated new category Best Single Poem – Performed, for his moving exploration of Polish and British communities in ‘Almost Certainly’.
‘Bohdan’s poem is not only moving and meticulously crafted, his performance of it is electric. It’s a great example of how many things come into play for “performance poetry” to be more than a recitation. It’s the combination of physical and emotional presence, connection with the audience, command over voice, pace, dynamic range, and sensitivity at all times, to the poem itself.’
2023 judge Chris Redmond
Since its inception in 1992, the Forward Prizes for Poetry have been supported by Bookmark, the global content marketing and communications agency. It is with their unstinting support that we have been able to shortlist 310 poets over the past 30 years, championed excellence in poetry and reached thousands of school students with Forward Prize Books and activities.
The Forward Prizes are also grateful to the literary estate of the late Felix Dennis, the Garfield Weston Foundation, Arts Council England and a number of individual donors.
This is poetry for our times.
The Forward Book of Poetry 2024 brings together the best poetry published in the British Isles over the last year, including the winners of the 2024 Forward Prizes. In showcasing the range and ambition of today’s fresh voices alongside new work by familiar names, this anthology is a perfect introduction to contemporary poetry.
The Forward Prizes are invaluable in finding the most essential, exciting voices, highlighting the contemporary poets who are at the top of their game and whose words will travel far and reach many readers.
“The Forward Prizes have established themselves as central to the literary landscape of modern Britain.” Andrew Marr
To find out more about what we offer, our events and getting involved.