From real-time responses to Gaza and Ukraine, to toxic landlords and the opioid epidemic; from displacement and transgenerational memory to the miners’ strike and the Met Gala, 20 poets have today been shortlisted for the 2024 Forward Prizes for Poetry.
The most coveted and influential prizes for poetry in the UK and Ireland, awarded in four categories: the Forward Prize for Best Collection (£10,000), the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection (£5,000), the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Written (£1,000), and the Jerwood Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed (£1,000), will announce this year’s shortlists at Apple and Snakes’ Jawdance event on Wednesday 17th July at Rich Mix in London.
The four Forward Prizes shortlists this year showcase the “astonishing breadth of styles and themes that contemporary poetry currently has to offer,” comments judge and writer Vanessa Kisuule. The range and versatility of form across the four categories was also noted by judge and poet Alycia Pirmohamed, who praised the hybrid forms of “prose poems, verse novels, and long poetry sequences” sharing the shortlist with works engaging in “photography and ekphrasis poetry.”
2024 chair of judges, Craig Charles, said: “I’m really thrilled to be in a position to champion all the incredible poets shortlisted. Poetry has long been an important part of my life, and my love for it has been a driver for championing poetry on my BBC6 show. My favourite part of this process was getting to spend intensive time with these fresh voices and my fellow judges – all professional poets. I especially love getting to showcase the vibrant spoken word scene I love so much.”
Renowned for championing new poetic voices and internationally celebrated writers alike, the shortlists announced (17th July) capture the lived experience of the world today and respond “to the urgency of these times like no other artform,” adds Co-Executive Director of the Forward Arts Foundation, Mónica Parle. In a time of global political divides, “these poets,” writes judge and poet Jane Clarke, “have found the language and form to sing of what it is to be human at this moment in time.”
Independent presses continue to demonstrate their importance in the poetry landscape with seven out of the ten collections published by independent publishers from across the UK and Ireland. Scottish performance poetry is flourishing with three of the five poets shortlisted for the Best Single Poem – Performed (Leyla Josephine, Nasim Rebecca Asl and Michael Pedersen) based in the region, including a repeat nomination for Pederson, who was also shortlisted in the inaugural performance category last year. The new award was praised by the Guardian for bringing the energy of performance poetry “into the classical canon, holding it in parallel and capturing it for posterity.”
Actor, presenter and poet Craig Charles is this year’s chair of judges, and is joined by poets and writers Alycia Pirmohamed, Vanessa Kisuule, Daniel Sluman and Jane Clarke.
Over the last three decades the prizes have celebrated some of the most recognised names in poetry including Simon Armitage, Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy, Claudia Rankine, Jackie Kay and Caleb Femi. This year’s winners will be announced at a special ceremony opening Durham Book Festival on 10th October 2024.
Co-Executive Director of the Forward Arts Foundation, Mónica Parle, said: “We are extraordinarily proud of these incredible shortlists. The judges steeped themselves in a trove of books from publishers big and small across the UK, as well as hundreds of individual poems. In this list, you will find a symphony of fresh voices, ideas, and forms. These selections incisively capture the lived experience of the world today, as poetry is so immediate and capable of responding to the urgency of these times like no other artform. Anyone who wants a compelling way to think about our times, read these books.”
2024 Forward Prizes judge, Jane Clarke, said: “It has been a privilege to work with my fellow judges in selecting four exciting shortlists which reflect the power, resonance and diversity of contemporary poetry. These poets have found the language and form to sing of what it is to be human at this moment in time. They bear witness to personal and political loss and injustice alongside love, courage and the determination to go on.”
2024 Forward Prizes judge, Vanessa Kisuule, said: “Judging this year has been many things: humbling, occasionally daunting and often thrilling. I am heartened by the astonishing breadth of styles and themes that contemporary poetry currently has to offer. The poems that stood out to me had a distinct and self-possessed voice, were unafraid to have fun and be funny even when addressing the starkest of subjects. Our shortlisted poets are all, in their way, traversing topics pertinent to our time: climate change, precarious housing and ongoing war are just some topics that feature amongst them, vivid and harrowing, yet still offering us moments of tenderness and levity. The best poems told it like it is, but never devolved into dogma. It’s been a special joy to see a strong turnout for the performance poetry category, with a whole host of dynamic voices proving there’s many ways to bring a poem to life on stage.”
2024 Forward Prizes judge, Daniel Sluman, said: “Judging these four categories was an incredibly difficult job. I’m so happy with our final choices and the breadth of ideas, techniques, and experiences they represent, and the current state of poetry that their quality makes visible. The best part of the process this year has been in meeting and conversing with my fellow co-judges, and their commitment to great poetry. Amongst so many fine pieces of art it was the crossover in our opinions that helped light the way towards our final decisions, and I wanted to emphasise for anyone who has had a book or poem submitted this year, that in many cases the difference between a shortlisted work and many others was tiny.”
2024 Forward Prizes judge, Alycia Pirmohamed, said: “While this year’s Forward Prizes submissions varied across style, subject and form, I found myself drawn to a number of exciting intersections between them. There seemed to be an interest in hybrid works, those that blurred and challenged our perceptions of genre. Prose poems, verse novels and long poetry sequences shared space with photographs and other visual elements. And if not photography itself, these works engaged with keen acts of observation such as ekphrasis poetry and poetry of witness. Though it was inevitably a tough, demanding and almost impossible task to narrow down such innovative and evocative works for our shortlist, spending time with a year of poetry on and off the page in this way was a privilege. I’m also grateful to my co-judges for their insights, which helped me to look at many of the poems in new and different ways.”
