Forward Prizes for Poetry

Forward Prizes for Poetry
Awarded for Best Collection (£10,000); Best First Collection (£5,000); Best Single Poem (£1,000)
Sponsor Forward Worldwide, Arts Council England, The John Ellerman Foundation, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The Rothschild Foundation, The Felix Dennis Trust
Location United Kingdom

The Forward Prizes for Poetry were first awarded in 1992 by William Sieghart with the aim of celebrating excellence in poetry and increasing its audience, raising poetry's profile and linking poetry to people in new ways. The prizes do this by identifying and honouring talent. Each year, works shortlisted for the prizes - plus those highly commended by the judges - are collected in the Forward Book of Poetry.

The awards. sponsored since their inception by the content marketing agency Forward Worldwide, are the most coveted annual poetry prizes in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland and are unique in celebrating new voices alongside established names: winners include Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Alice Oswald, Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy, Kathleen Jamie and Claudia Rankine.

The 25th Forward Prizes will take place on 20 September 2016 at the Royal Festival Hall in London. The judges are Malika Booker, Liz Berry, Don Share, George Szirtes and Tracey Thorn - and to mark the 25th anniversary this year, the prize for Best First Collection has been increased to £15,000, with all five shortlistees in that category receiving £1000.

The winners of the 2015 prizes were awarded on 28 September 2015 at Southbank Centre:

The 24th Forward Book of Poetry, an anthology of all the poems shortlisted for the prizes or highly commended by the judges, was published on 17 September 2015. Poems of the Decade: an Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry, a selection of work by poets included in the first ten Forward Books of the 21st century is currently a set text for English Literature A Level (Edexcel). The poets represented include Patience Agbabi, Simon Armitage, John Burnside, Carol Ann Duffy, Helen Dunmore, UA Fanthorpe, Seamus Heaney, Andrew Motion, Daljit Nagra and Sean O'Brien.

Details

The Forward Prizes for Poetry consist of three awards:

The Prizes are run by the Forward Arts Foundation, which is also responsible for National Poetry Day. The executive director of the Forward Arts Foundation is Susannah Herbert.[1]

Judges

The 2016 judging panel is chaired by Malika Booker, writer and spoken word artist, and includes poets George Szirtes and Liz Berry, with singer/songwriter Tracey Thorn and Don Share, editor of Poetry (magazine). The Prizes will be awarded on 20 September 2016 at London's Southbank Centre.[2]

2015 Shortlist

Best Collection

Ciaran Carson, From Elsewhere (Gallery Books)

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, The Boys of Bluehill (Gallery Books)

Photo of Claudia Rankine winning the 2015 Forward Prize
Claudia Rankine wins the 2015 Forward Prize for Best Collection at Southbank Centre, London

Paul Muldoon, One Thousand Things Worth Knowing (Faber & Faber)

Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (Penguin Books)

Peter Riley, Due North (Shearsman)

Best First Collection

Mona Arshi, Small Hands (Liverpool University Press, Pavilion Poetry)

Sarah Howe, Loop of Jade (Chatto & Windus)

Andrew McMillan, physical (Cape Poetry)

Matthew Siegel, Blood Work (CB editions)

Karen McCarthy Woolf, An Aviary of Small Birds (Carcanet)

Best Single Poem

Maura Dooley, 'Cleaning Jim Dine's Heart' (The Poetry Review)

Andrew Elliott, 'Doppelgänger' (Sonofabook)

Ann Gray, 'My Blue Hen' (The Moth)

Claire Harman, 'The Mighty Hudson' (Times Literary Supplement)

Kim Moore, 'In That Year' (Poetry News)

2014 Shortlist

Best Collection

Colette Bryce, The Whole & Rain-domed Universe (Picador Poetry)

John Burnside, All One Breath (Cape Poetry)

Louise Glück, Faithful and Virtuous Night (Carcanet)

Kei Miller, The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion (Carcanet)

Hugo Williams, I Knew the Bride (Faber & Faber)

Jeremy Paxman, Dannie Abse and Helen Mort at the Forward Prizes judging meeting 2014

Best First Collection

Fiona Benson, Bright Travellers (Cape Poetry)

Liz Berry, Black Country (Chatto & Windus)

Niall Campbell, Moontide (Bloodaxe Books)

Beatrice Garland, The Invention of Fireworks (Templar Poetry)

Kevin Powers, Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting (Sceptre)

Vidyan Ravinthiran, Grun-tu-molani (Bloodaxe Books)

Best Single Poem

Tim Nolan, 'Red Wing Correctional Facility' (Troubadour International Poetry Prize)

Denise Riley, 'After La Rochefoucauld' (Eggbox/UEA Poetry Series)

Stephen Santus, 'In a Restaurant' (The Bridport Prize)

Jack Underwood, 'Thank you for your email' (The White Review)

Jeffrey Wainwright, 'An Empty Street' (PN Review)

2013 Shortlist

Best Collection

Rebecca Goss, Her Birth (Carcanet/Northern House)

Glyn Maxwell, Pluto (Picador Poetry)

Sinéad Morrissey, Parallax (Carcanet)

Jacob Polley, The Havocs (Picador Poetry)

Michael Symmons Roberts, Drysalter (Cape Poetry)

Samuel West, Sheenagh Pugh, Jeanette Winterson, Paul Farley and David Mills at the first 2013 judging meeting

Best First Collection

Emily Berry, Dear Boy (Faber and Faber)

Marianne Burton, She Inserts the Key (Seren)

Steve Ely, Oswald's Book of Hours (Smokestack Books)

Hannah Lowe, Chick (Bloodaxe Books)

Dan O'Brien, War Reporter (CB Editions)

Adam White, Accurate Measurements (Doire Press)

Best Single Poem

Patience Agbabi, 'The Doll's House' (Poetry Review)

C. J. Allen, 'Explaining the Plot of Blade Runner to My Mother Who Has Alzheimer's' (Troubadour International Poetry Prize)

Rosie Shepperd, 'A Seedy Narrative or Moments of Lyrical Stillness?' (Smith|Doorstop)

Nick MacKinnon, 'The Metric System' (The Warwick Review)

Hugo Williams, 'From the Dialysis Ward' (London Review of Books)[3]

Previous Winners

Best Collection

Best First Collection

Best Single Poem

Previous Judges

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

See also

References

  1. ↑ Forward Arts Foundation. Retrieved 04 July 2013
  2. ↑ "Forward Prizes 2016 | Forward Arts Foundation". www.forwardartsfoundation.org. Retrieved 2016-02-08.
  3. ↑ Shortlist Announcement, 08.07.13, 'http://forwardartsfoundation.org/poetry.html'
  4. 1 2 3 Alison Flood (1 October 2012). "Jorie Graham takes 2012 Forward prize". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2012.

External links

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