Ralf Webb

Ralf Webb

Ralf Webb (b. 1991, Bath) was managing editor of The White Review from 2017 to 2021. Rotten Days in Late Summer is constructed around three sequences: ‘Diagnostics’, about a father’s death from cancer and its aftermath, ‘Treetops’, exploring Webb’s own struggles with mental health, and the ‘Love Stories’, which are scattered throughout the collection and deal with the yearning and pathos of different relationships.

Webb stresses the communitarian aspects of poetry: ‘Even if the act of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) might be done alone, there is so much more that can be done with others to contextualise or inform that act’, he writes. His own work in this area includes the Arts Council-funded PoetryxClass reading group project, which he set up and ran, focusing on the intersection between poetry and class identities.

Forward Prizes History:

• 2021 Forward Prizes for Best First Collection, shortlisted for, Rotten Days in Late Summer (Penguin Poetry)