Forward Prizes for Poetry: The Shortlist of the Best Collection Prize: An Introduction

Posted on by stevendouglasblog

My copies of the 2024 shortlist.

Geoff and I are attending the Forward Prizes for Poetry event on Thursday 10th October, and I am preparing myself by reading the shortlist for the main prize – for a breakthrough volume of poems. The shortlist is pictured above, but the event is much wider as the presence of gender-queer poet Joelle Taylor, the master of performance poetry tells us. Here is the event’s description.

The Forward Prizes for Poetry are an unmissable fixture in the literary calendar – a celebration for all who want to discover the best contemporary poetry. This year, Durham Book Festival is delighted to host the announcement of the prizes for the first time.  

Twenty outstanding poets will be invited to take the mic and perform their work, delivering the perfect mix-tape of what’s happening in the poetry scene, published in the UK and Ireland, today.   

The Forward Prizes recognise achievement in four categories: Best Collection; The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection; Best Single Poem – Written, and Best Single Poem – Performed.  

Hosted by author, performer and poet, Joelle Taylor and featuring the poet Kayo Chingonyi and BBC Radio 6 Music’s Craig Charles.   

This will be a great event and I will blog afterwards. I have never attempted to blog on Forward before and I will confine myself to the shortlist. I have read one and loved it – and am half way through loving another. The blogs will be an act of reverence and pleasure. As I do with the Booker Longlist (see this year’s list as an example at this link), I have created a grid list of the shortlisted books and will update its components as they are finished.

Name of poetry volume (date published) & author, publisherReading started / finishedQuick CommentBlog address
Goodlord (2024) Ella Frears, Rough Trade Books1st Sept. 2024 / 9th Sept 2024An absolutely amazing experiment with mode, genre and verse types, it reads like a novel and a confessional tract. A joy.https://livesteven.com/2024/09/11/speaking-to-emily-dinsdale-of-dazed-ella-frears-says-of-her-new-artwork-that-its-not-verse-but-i-guess-when-i-started-writing-through-this-angry-voice-i-found-a-cadence-that-makes-i/?_gl=1*arjzs2*_gcl_au*OTg1MjkwNDQxLjE3MjYwNDY4NDI.
Strike  (2024) Sarah Wimbush, Stairwell Books9th Sept 2024 / 10 September 2024An intensely moving collection that is hard memory-work for me. I need to work out how it is as poetry in a bloghttps://livesteven.com/2024/09/13/what-is-the-role-of-poetry-in-mourning-and-celebrating-the-political-past-this-is-a-blog-on-sarah-wimbush-2024-strike-and-the-miners-strike-of-1984-1985/
[…] Poems (2024) Fady Joudah, Out Spoken Press10 September 2024 / 13 September 2024This is poetry of a very high order that omits what it cannot say about the horror of people talking about genocide in Gaza and ONLY talking about it. Painful beautiful. I do not think my blog anywhere NEAR what I wanted to write. This is very GREAT poetryhttps://livesteven.com/2024/09/19/a-language-of-life-this-is-a-blog-on-fady-joudahs-volume-named-poems-london-out-spoken-press/?_gl=1*1q76tm5*_gcl_au*OTg1MjkwNDQxLjE3MjYwNDY4NDI.
God Complex (2024) Rachael Allen, Faber & Faber18 September 2024 (restarted)/ 20 Sept. 2024This is a powerful set of poems that can also be seen as story-telling, using a narrator whose changes of consciousness matter. Some fine poetry herehttps://livesteven.com/2024/09/22/here-is-a-wasteland-of-past-aesthetics-this-is-a-blog-on-rachael-allen-2024-god-complex/?_gl=1*evo2js*_gcl_au*OTg1MjkwNDQxLjE3MjYwNDY4NDI.
With My Back To The World (2024) Victoria Chang. Corsair Press20th September 2024 / 23 September 2024I wrote originally that I had had a mixed response to this though it is obviously major work by a major poet. The mixedness has gone. I am purely in awe. The long poem in section II on the death of her father is pivotal: moving & shocking. What a poet!https://livesteven.com/2024/09/24/agnes-must-have-miscalculated-the-math-that-we-get-wrong-in-art-perhaps-deliberately-this-is-a-blog-on-victoria-chang-2024-with-my-back-to-the-world/?_gl=1*yk5eri*_gcl_au*OTg1MjkwNDQxLjE3MjYwNDY4NDI.

This is an event I will enjoy. Book your tickets now. It is at the Gala Theatre in Durham.

PS: NOW having read all the books I had intended to predict a winner but I find myself unable to compare on one scale works of such a different nature. Any of these might win and please me though Wimbush is less innovative than the others. I vie for ‘favourite’ between Ella Frears and Fady Joudah.

It will amaze.

With love

Steven xxxxxx

2 thoughts on “Forward Prizes for Poetry: The Shortlist of the Best Collection Prize: An Introduction”

  1. Pingback: What are literary prizes for?  A reflection from this reader of books – with my Booker predictions. – Steve_Bamlett_blog
  2. Pingback: Forward Poetry Prize fills the stage with meaning, truth, beauty and not a little fun. – Steve_Bamlett_blog

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