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Allen-Paisant, Mehri, Booker and Piasecki scoop Forward Poetry Prizes
Poets Jason Allen-Paisant, Momtaza Mehri, Malika Booker and Bohdan Piasecki have been awarded Forward Poetry Prizes.
The awards were announced at a ceremony at Leeds Playhouse on Monday evening (16th October), where a total prize pot of £17,000 was up for grabs.
Allen-Paisant won the £10,000 prize for Best Collection with Self-Portrait as Othello (Carcanet). Chair of judges for the panel, Bernardine Evaristo, called it "an exhilarating and propulsive read that sweeps through several European cities that become subject to the Black male gaze, changing what is seen and who is heard”. She added: “Playful, intimate and allusive, these poems interrogate masculinity and history, experiment with the myth of Othello, mourn absent fathers, and offer us a refreshing mash-up of languages that regenerate poetry so that it feels freshly minted.”
Mehri triumphed in the £5,000 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection with Bad Diaspora Poems (Jonathan Cape), described by Evaristo as “an exceptional debut collection that reinvigorates ideas around diaspora, migration and home”. She continued: “Wide-ranging and ambitious, her poetry shimmers with erudition and linguistic exquisiteness, while also having an emotional heart. Drawing on global cultures, Mehri is a truly transnational poet of the 21st century whose words pulsate out into the world-at-large.”
Booker became the first woman to win the £1,000 Best Single Poem – Written category twice, first in 2020, and this year for "Libation", originally published in the Poetry Review. Judge Chris Redmond said: “Malika’s piece reads like a drink. A slow pour of linguistic libation that funnels the reader down into the depths of ritual, grief, culture and society. It works hard to tread so lightly and holds all of this with tenderness and love.”
Piasecki became the inaugural winner of the new £1,000 category Best Single Poem – Performed, for his exploration of Polish and British communities in "Almost Certainly". Redmond said: “Bohdan’s poem is not only moving and meticulously crafted, his performance of it is electric. It’s a great example of how many things come into play for ‘performance poetry’ to be more than a recitation. It’s the combination of physical and emotional presence, connection with the audience, command over voice, pace, dynamic range and sensitivity at all times, to the poem itself.”
Evaristo was this year’s Chair of Judges for the Best Collections panel, and was joined by judges Kate Fox, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Andrés N Ordórica and Jessica Traynor. Joelle Taylor was this year’s Chair of Judges for the Best Single Poems panel, and was joined by Khadijah Ibrahiim, Caroline Bird, Chris Redmond and Sue Roberts.
