Skip to main content

Leftfield Foward

The shortlists for the 19th annual Forward Prizes for Poetry, one of the UK ’s most valuable poetry prizes, was announced yesterday. "On the Best Collection short list two former category winners compete with poets on the list for the first time, while the short list for Best Single Poem brings many new faces to the fore."  It is especially good to see the small presses represented, as well as Lachlan Mackinnon, there - he's long been an Eyewear favourite.  However, it seems that for the main category, it may go to either Sampson or Shapcott.  Of course, one can never rule out the other strong contenders, especially Heaney.  I have yet to read all the debut collections, must get those.
"The shortlists are:

The Forward Prize for Best Collection
£10,000 – sponsored by the Forward Arts Foundation

Seamus Heaney         Human Chain                                       Faber & Faber

Lachlan Mackinnon     Small Hours                                         Faber & Faber

Sinéad Morrissey        Through the Square Window               Carcanet

Robin Robertson         The Wrecking Light                             Picador

Fiona Sampson          Rough Music                                       Carcanet

Jo Shapcott                 Of Mutability                                        Faber & Faber

The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection
£5,000 – sponsored by Felix Dennis and the Forward Arts Foundation

Christian Campbell     Running the Dusk                               Peepal Tree

Hilary Menos               Berg                                                    Seren

Abegail Morley             How to Pour Madness into a Teacup Cinnamon Press

Helen Oswald             Learning Gravity                                 Tall Lighthouse

Steve Spence             A Curious Shipwreck                          Shearsman Books

Sam Willetts               New Light for the Old Dark                 Jonathan Cape

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in memory of Michael Donaghy
£1,000 – sponsored by the Forward Arts Foundation

Kate Bingham             On Highgate Hill                                  Times Literary Supplement

Julia Copus                 An easy passage                                Magma

Lydia Fulleylove           Night Drive                                          Bridport Prize

Chris Jones                 Sentences                                           Staple

Ian Pindar                    Mrs Beltinska in the Bath                    National Poetry Competition

Lee Sands                   The Reach                                          Times Literary Supplement

Poet and author Ruth Padel is chair of the judges of the Forward Prizes for Poetry 2010. The other judges are poet and columnist Hugo Williams, performance poet Dreadlockalien, journalist and broadcaster Alex Clark, and award-winning actress and director Fiona Shaw."
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?
3 comments
Read more

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".
1 comment
Read more

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise
1 comment
Read more